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Rave: To be delirious.
"Are you enjoying yourself?"
At least that's what I think he said. He could have said anything, really. He was thin, with blond, spiky hair, peering at me through thick-rimmed glasses. At least, that's what I thought I could make out between laser light flashes.
"My name's Ron."
I've made contact. Careful--they can smell fear.
Ron is a raver, one who attends raves. This particular rave is at the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center. Nineteen DJs are in town, some from as far away as New York City, Chicago, Ottawa and Great Britain. This particular DJ, Space Girl, has them all beat.
"She's from Moscow," Ron tells me. "And she has a great ass."
I hadn't really been aware the DJ was a woman. All I could see was a sprout of blond hair twittering up and down between a deck of turntables. I had to take Ron's word about her ass.
About 150 over-caffeinated spider monkeys convulsed between Space Girl and myself. This was the herd. And Ron--Ron's the spider monkey silverback. He's feeling me out. He wants to know if I'm a threat to the herd.
I'm not a threat, of course. I tried to communicate.
"I'm on assignment."
Ron's ears perked. He smiled.
"Are you a writer?"
I looked over each shoulder for aurally enhanced eavesdroppers. Finding none, I gave Ron a single nod. This pleased him. The herd was satisfied, and the spider monkeys gave Space Girl--and her ass--their full concentration.
Ron lives in Rochester. He came to town with a group of friends for this--New Life Energy, a mega-rave thrown by Sanborn's own Phlux Productions. On the rave scene, this is what you'd call a big deal. Ron tells me hundreds of kids have come up from Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Albany and Toronto for this shindig. Every one of these rave kids plopped down $35 to be here. This is a big deal.
"Have you been to the drum and bass room yet?" Ron asked. I told him I hadn't. "It's crazy hot in there. Sweaty hot. And it's all at least 160 beats per minute."
I guess I lied. I WAS in the hot room. It was small and crowded, and marijuana smoke clung to the corners of the room like olfactory ivy. Ron and I were now in the trance room, where tripped-out rave kids blew their minds on laser light holograms, or laid on the floor while someone rhythmically swung glow sticks inches in front of their faces. It's supposed to be a similar effect to LSD, I'm told. Sure.
I ask Ron why here, why Niagara Falls? Why is the rave scene so alive here, particularly when everything else in town is almost dead? This is a gray-haired, rust-belt town. How did it become a rave hotbed? Is it all the positive ions from the cataract?
"It doesn't matter where the rave is. We'll go anywhere for something like this," Ron said. "The venue is meaningless. But the scene is doing very well in Niagara Falls. There are a lot of crackheads here tonight, though."
I noticed Ron was beginning to look at me differently now. He had become suspicious.
"Have you been drinking?"
I'd had one beer earlier in the day. He could apparently smell it in my pores, and he didn't like it. I had inadvertently broken one of the cardinal rules of the rave. If I had shot heroin, taken E, or rolled a joint, the herd still would have accepted me. They don't mind drugs. But beer ... beer is what their folks drink. It's what fat guys in bowling alleys drink. It's what the unenlightened drink.
I was uncovered--I'm nothing more than a tourist. I had angered the herd. I bid Ron farewell. He wished me luck.
The plan was this: buy a ticket to the New Life Energy rave, take in the scene and write a story about it. Infiltrate the Colorform vampires with their glow sticks, Blow Pops and pacifiers and break down the scene for the (original) Woodstock crowd.
What does Suzie do when she goes out with her friends? And what does she do with all that bubble wrap she packs in her backpack on the way out the door? (Answer: Suzie and her friends make it into halter tops and mini skirts. The boys they REALLY like get to pop the bubbles. The rest just watch.)
But how could I fit in with these kids? I wasn't about to buy a glitter jacket and suck an oversized pacifier, and I'm a few years older than the ones who are. I searched my dresser and dug out a black T-shirt, featuring Jhonen Vasquez's animated antihero Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, and a pair of black jeans. It would have to do. I would have to keep moving, absorbing the scene. Don't make eye contact, don't speak unless spoken to. They're a curious breed and they spook easily. I am not a narc. I am an explorer, the Ponce de Leon of this rave, seeking my Fountain of Youth in the body glitter, "wife beater" tank tops and tribal tattoos of this strange culture.
The camouflage seemed to be working--two rave "grrls" approached me, complimenting my shirt. Yes, yes, the tribe was accepting me. I was free to move about and observe their behavior in their natural environment, unencumbered by their inhibitions or fears.
New Life Energy featured three rooms, each showcasing its distinctive style: house, trance or jungle.
The style of music was slightly different, but the rave kids were all the same. Averaging about 18 years old, they decked themselves out in their mall-bought most outrageous. The girls deck out as ingenues--crosses between Hello Kitty and Betty Boop. Lots of makeup, very few bras (unless worn as outerwear), four out of five with at least part of their thong protruding from their hip-huggers. Hair is worn in pigtails or shorn and dyed. As for boys, some embrace their feminine side with swishy pink or mirror ball shirts. Others have their shirts peeled off, displaying rock-hard abs and ever-present nipple rings. The concert mosh pit has been replaced by a breakdancing circle on the outskirts of the party.
The environment is supposed to be one of open acceptance. It doesn't matter what you look like--a pigtailed schoolgirl or a leather-clad vamp--you'll still fit in at the rave.
As long as you bought your clothes at the same store everyone else did.
And you'd better not be wearing blue jeans.
That's just the way it is.
The bass from the event can be heard for blocks. The convention center opened its doors at 10 p.m. The rave runs until 7 a.m. There's no booze--that would be gauche. Free orange slices are available, and soft drinks are for sale. You need sugar to keep you dancing.
Or Ecstasy. Despite heavy security, the rave wonder drug clearly is in heavy supply.
Kids with bloodshot eyes, their pupils as big as dimes, chatter animatedly in the hallways. Others dance ... and dance ... and dance, with a never-ending supply of nervous energy.
A group of kids sit on the hall floor, resting. A girl in a blue tank top pulls a cylinder of chapstick from her pocket. She pulls it apart, casually looks around and inhales a nostril full of cocaine, wiping the residue from her nose as an afterthought.
Inside the house room, a couple neatly arranges lines on a piece of paper, squatting down in the middle of the dance floor. The vast majority of these kids aren't doing anything worse than smoking and checking out members of the opposite sex. The joint isn't overrun with drugs. The scene isn't really ABOUT drugs either. It's just another thing that happens to be going on.
Chicago's DJ Funk has the place whipped up in a booty frenzy with raunchy lyrics over a pounding beat in the house room. There is no end to the sound. There are no breaks, no hooks, no readily identifiable beginnings and endings of songs. There is just the beat. And the lights. And the bass. And the herd. I feel a beefy hand around my wrist. It's a friend of mine, Tony, the last person in the world I'd expect to see here.
Tony studied law. Now he's an actor. He helped set things up. He asks me what I'm doing here, and I tell him.
"You know this isn't a real rave, right?" he says. "Real raves are in little clubs."
"So what's this?" I ask. Tony shrugs.
"It just ain't real. None of this shit is real."
Tony is right, of course. The music isn't real. It's just a beat. Sample after sample over a beat. Only a handful of devotees--silverbacks like Ron--are here for the DJs. The rest are here for the spectacle. They're here to see the young girls showing off their cleavage. They're here to dance. They're here to be seen.
Getting a true headcount is impossible. There easily have been 3,000 kids, coming and going, throughout the night. Probably closer to 6,000. It's a never-ending flow of bright colors and outrageous clothes. It's more entrancing than the beat, more numbing than the laser light shows. Like a sea of garish mannequins, the rave kids ebb, flow and boil, flooding out doors and into rooms, and then vanish in a sea of Xerox copies.
I am unique.
Just like everyone else.
But it's not real.
It's not a high--it's a sugar rush. It's not real--it's Memorex. It's not making peace--it's trying to get a piece.
But what do you expect? The water these kids drink comes out of a plastic bottle. The sex they have comes swathed in latex.
This herd has no ideals. It has no music. It has no personality. It only has cute clothes, and a detached sense of irony.
Who are these 21st century plastic rave spider monkeys? They're your kids ... only they're missing their souls--and they don't know where they can buy them.
But who needs a soul when you've got 160 beats per minute?
What else do you need?