July 21, 2000 “Randy Goes to a Rave at the Rocks”
The first surprise was that the audience was mostly shorthaired college kids–short hair not in a skinhead kind of way or in a fashionably unfashionable kind of way, but in a “I’m majoring in business” kind of way–not the longhaired misfits I expected. I didn’t see a single tie-dye all night–but those bizarre light sticks and phosphorescent jewelry were everywhere. The sight of so many elaborate tattoos and piercings made me slightly ill. I remember Amy saying at a Cure concert how odd it was that the audience wasn’t making music. Anyone who’s been to a rave knows exactly what she means. This wasn’t a normal concert situation where there’s nothing happening, and then the opening band comes on stage and do their thing and disappear and then there’s nothing happening and then the headliners come on stage and then it’s over and you go home.
There was a dj playing when we came in and he also came back between sets (and I think he got more people out of their seats and kept them there than the headliners), and two video screens and lasers and dry ice and dancers on stage and in pod-like metal structures on either side of the crowd–although this may have been an open area taken over by enthusiastic audience members. There was no reserved seating so people moved around at will (all concerts should be that way). It was a little like a cross between the usual concert scene (you stared down at the stage from rigid seats, but there was plenty of room for dancing and a sense of “your space” if you wanted it; but if not you felt free to move around) and having a rave in a small industrial place where you feel contained and powerfully secret and slightly illegal, and the world outside is some place you don’t want to re-enter. And in a large room, where hardly anyone can even see the dj, YOU are the scene–whatever’s happening in front of you is the party, and the music is something you can either dance to or walk away from.
The first headliner was a guy called BT–and he was so pumped up (literally–his left arm punched into the air above his head in a constant up-and-down piston-like rhythm from the moment he hit the stage) that his excitement was physically palpable. It was a kick just to see someone having so much fun. By then everyone–performer and audience alike–knew that a strong bass ‘n’ drums track got the crowd up and dancing, and the minute the music wandered into more experimental, mental, space-type sections, the crowd would drift off into animated, pleasant conversations. But BT was having more fun than anyone, and was so over-excited that he threw his keyboards into the audience at the end of his set (what are they playing, anyway? Samplers? Synths? Switchers? Computers?). I began to feel that the people who’d offered me $60 for my ticket on the way in knew what they were doing (sad faces holding signs looking for tickets lined the road for several miles).
Then the dj again for a much-too-long period of time it seemed to me–an hour–especially since BT only played for 40 minutes, and it’s not like they’re setting up a drum kit and multiple microphones–but what do I know? Maybe it’s tremendously difficult to hook up all that gear–but none of the roadies seemed to be moving with any sense of urgency. All I know is that after about 30 minutes the audience—mentally and physically—wandered away. What was happening in every little enclave was a million times more interesting anyway. This wasn’t a show where your neighbors were ignored and tolerated—your neighbors were your neighbors—the heart-to-heart conversation between two high school girls completely loaded on ecstasy who sat beside me and bummed cigarettes, two at a time, was infinitely more moving than anything that was happening half a football field away. The music was coming out of speakers, for God’s sake.
When Oakenfeld finally came on it was instantly clear that we were in for a completely different experience–gone were the bass ‘n’ drums and suddenly we were faced with a video-enhanced image of a man who was very, very serious–and who would alternately and inexplicably (to me) thrust BOTH his arms into the air above his head like Rocky or, more commonly, cross his arms and stand back from his bank of keyboards with an extremely self-satisfied glower like Zeus showing the mortals exactly who’s boss–which was, I must admit, pretty effective. But neither of the headliners had learned what the dj knew so well; that the most important thing was to have no real breaks in the music–any sudden silence or applause was just plain weird if not something infinitely more disturbing. But Oakenfeld persevered through the gradual toning down of the audience and continued to play more cerebral, spacey, non-beat, elaborate “compositions.”
The audience was pretty wasted at this point and I couldn’t help but notice that walking was becoming more and more of a problem for a large portion of the audience (myself included). But the lasers and dry ice and projections and flash pots always got a roar from the crowd (and the sudden appearance of the moon was pretty well received too). And the projected films instantly became much more interesting–layering audience shots with solarized, high contrast transparencies of heavily manipulated computer animation, weird vintage documentaries, Brakhage’s trick of writing on black leader, and some fifties porno films that were immediately censored by whomever was running the film/live mix–and it was at this point that the too-frequent crowd shots began to resemble those tacky MTV beachparty tapes.
Overall, the scene (and it was a long show, I left well beyond midnight and the show was still going strong) was composed of heavily repetitive, rather dumb music, dancing; videos; lasers; and smokepots—but it was also rather schizophrenic, with props designed to focus attention away from the stage and onto the good humor in your immediate scene, which included open sexuality (one woman was making out with two guys and the only emotion anyone felt toward them was tenderness and protectiveness) and uninhibited drug use (by the way, what is the Deep Dish someone tried to sell me? And it was a shock to have someone not old enough to buy cigarettes sit next to me and ask me–quite formally, calling me sir during the entire long and painfully insincere prelude and its brisk and final question, like getting hit on in a highway rest room–if I had any crack).
But, as I exclaimed to someone sitting next to me after about an hour, it was clear that Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary had actually won! In the sixties these things were clandestine and socially threatening, much smaller, unchoreographed, and illegal. And I wondered aloud if Allen Ginsberg had ever attended a rave.
But with that “wide acceptance” comes a cost–it reminded me of when jocks in my high school started turning on. Getting stoned with them was quite a shock–the intense spirituality I experienced wasn’t part of their experience at all–smoking dope was basically a substitute for beer and had the same effect–they got fucked up and stupid. There was no sense in this crowd of being on the verge of really changing the world. But who knows? Maybe they’re better off without it. These slightly jocky guys and girls (and there were a LOT of very clean-cut girls) were having a good time, and Monday morning they’d be back in accounting classes. It was a huge frat party. Not that that’s bad–I had more pleasant conversations with complete strangers at this show than any I’ve ever been to in my entire life (most of them asking if I had an extra cigarette). People were so polite and well behaved that I found myself commenting on it to several passersby. Even the skinhead with his baseball cap on sideways (his name was Brandon and he works at the Sink in Boulder where he says they have a new cook who’s a real cook and boasted of his Mahi-mahi while dismissing things I remember the Sink for [like their hamburgers] as “bar food”) meant it as a compliment when he said to me before he said goodbye that “It’s good to see you old folks come out.”
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