I just got back from Chicago late last night and was all excited to fill everyone in on this party, but it looks like Steve beat me to it (see below). I'll just go ahead and fill in the blanks.
I, too, got there around midnight and found the huge mass of several hundred kids standing out in the cold wind, freezing their asses off. For the hour I stood there, the line didn't move. My friends and I tried to position ourselves at different spots in the masses, but no matter where we stood, the line wasn't moving. Then, eventually, people got sick of standing in the cold and just bum rushed the tent. It was a site. Like 400 kids just going for it, riot style. It was fucked up that things had to happen like that, but the disorganization of the promoters was SO frustrating and uncalled for. There's no excuse for leaving close to a thousand people outside in the cold in t-shirts. The promoters knew they had 6000 kids coming. Why hadn't they made the necessary arrangements? So the riot took place and rightly so. Within 3 minutes though, the police started appearing and all hell broke loose. Kids got beat down and the police just went psycho with thier nightsticks, flashlights and dogs. It was terrifying to see people getting trampled and assaulted. I had my camera and tried to get a few pictures, but in all the chaos, I was only able to get a few good shots of the people swarming the tent. So the swarm of police officers eventually forced everyone out of the tent through force and threat. I wanted to get inside, but I didn't want to get beat down with a nightstick Rodney King-style like some of the other unfortunate kids. About an hour later, this huge line of like 2,000 people formed on the side of the building, leading towards a rear exit the size of my bedroom door: the largest bottleneck in the world. Upon seeing this, I was furious. All I wanted to do was get inside and see Ritchie. I had wasted two hours waiting in line and now it seemed as though I was going to have to spend at least another two to three hours in another line. Luckily, just as we got in line, somebody opened up a side door -- and exit -- and about 100 of us just went for it, sprinting through this doorway before the security could stop us. I felt very very fortunate. The party was pretty cool, very big. Unlike Steve, I spent the entire evening in the laser tag room. The best way for me to describe this room is to make a comparison to the concluding finale in "The Empire Strikes Back" where Luke and Darth Vader fight in this strange black and red room with cylanders shooting up out of the ground and elevated platforms framing the main floor. People were crammed in the small room. There was a haze from all the persperation. I remember standing on a distant platform, looking down at the crowd and Ritchie and not being able to see clearly through all the moisture in the air. Sweat was just dripping off my head even when I wasn't dancing. There was so much moisture in the air that none of my pictures turned out clearly. My flash couldn't cut through the air and would bounce back, making the pictures look all hazy. In sum, this room was fucking amazing. Not only because of the textural context but also because of all the people just out of their minds in the heat. Even if you weren't tripping or rolling or smoked out, you felt disorientated from the temperature. Acquaviva was good, but Ritchie was so amazing that I seldom left the room for the whole 5 hours he spun. I could sit here and explain exactly how amazing he is, but I feel like I don't have the time. The bottom line: you couldn't even tell when he would bring in a new track. Completely seamless. It seemed as though he used his machines more than his records. Or his records only functioned to bridge his spontaneous creations. Due to the heavy 909 use, it was a very percussive set with tons and tons of explosive bass kicks and dense layers of symetric percussion loops. He would slow things down and send the crowd into a frenzied state by going into a "Spastik"-like percussive build-up topped off with the hammering entry of the 909 kicks. Things concluded with him going through his montage of the three versions of "Orange" with the Nitzer Ebb vocals. After this, he put the records away and spend a good 15 minutes just working his 909. In the end, everyone was screaming, hollering and giving him a standing applause. One last note: About Chicago, this was my first party there. Though the whole riot and the disorganization made me extremely frustrated and thinking that I'm just too old for these kiddy raves anymore, my attitude changed inside. It was great to see 6,000 kids partying. I literally felt like the oldest one there, besides the DJs. This made me realize that there are a lot of kids into this music in Chicago and the surrounding area. Thier future looks bright. After the party I spent some time talking to some of the kids, and they seemed very sincere in thier ideals. All of them have a passion for the music and the parties. Jason -----Original Message----- From: Stephen T Day [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 8:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Live on the Decks Hi everyone... To anyone who's interested: Allow me to be the first to post about the finest party I have ever been to - Live on the Decks 3 - Chicago, Illinois. This party overcame several huge, huge hurdles to be placed at the top of my list. The evening got off to a rocky start as at 12:00 there was already an hour and a half line to get in, complete with Gestapo-style execution lines (girls in one, guys in another) and screaming, threatening security guards. About a dozen squad cars of Chicago's finest also showed up to beat down and remove hundreds of kids who tried to rush one of the entrances (one guy actually got his face beaten in and his leg broken by the cops - another had someone trown on top of him, buckling his knee, just to site a few.). Needless to say, I was very sceptical that this event was even going to last through the night - much less be any fun - but once inside this all changed. We walked into the first room - a huge laser tag maze complete with caves and multiple levels - to the sweet sounds of John Acquaviva. We then proceded to the carpeted jungle room for the danger (yeah Neil) brought hard and throbby by Dieselboy and MC Dub2. Most of my evening was then spent in the humongous - ice arena scale - space at the back of the venue. Here I experienced such acts as Hardfloor, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Christopher Lawrence, and others. Hardfloor was amazing - really working the crowd with a much-needed downtempo. Funk was great too, dropping funky house till everyone was soaked in their own sweat. Lawrence was alright - firing up all the trance heads in attendance - despite an awful tonearm bump in the middle of his set. Twice during the night we dropped in on the man of plastik himself back in the laser tag room. He was unbelievable. I can scarcely say I've heard a better techno set in all of my life. He spun for over 4 hours - and kept everyone there hype the entire time. He was using his standard rig nowadays: three turntables, a 909 drum machine, and a 101 bass module. He really rocked my world. :) The night ended on a rather sour note again however when we hit the parking lot to find my friend John's passenger window smashed and his discman stolen. Probably could have been worse, but definitely could have been better. I can honestly say I did not enjoy dealing with cops one on one looking as especially "bright-eyed" and bushy-tailed as I'm sure I did. Even given all of these problems - LOTD3 was the shit!!! Alright - I'll stop rubbing it in now. I'm sorry I missed all of you who I knew were going to be at the event. There were just too many people there. I hope at least a bunch of you made it out. It was incredible. Peace everyone, STD
