Saturday, April 16, 2011

Getting Older...

So we went to an event billed as a “dance party” at Black Cat in D.C.  Normally we go to this club to see indie rock shows, but we thought we'd attempt some dancing here in the fast-waning days of our youth.

Here is how the event was billed on the website:

Saturday Apr 16

THE SATURDAY NIGHT DANCE PARTY

New Wave, Pop, 90s, and Other Oddities w/ DJ [name retracted].

$5 Backstage / Doors at 9:30

Tickets available night of show.


So we attended this event with our friend Eric, hoping for a night of eighties New Wave electronic dance numbers (think New Order or Pet Shop Boys) with maybe some nineties Trip-hop (think Portishead or Tricky) thrown in for good measure.  We’d also hoped there would be some oldsters like us (30-somethings) to round the crowd out.

It turns out that we were dead wrong.  Instead the DJ played an entire set of hip-hop, house music, R&B, and disco.  To add to the sense of displacement, the median age of the patrons seemed to be about 24.

We did have fun, though.  By midnight the music was pulsing through the stage and we were ridng on wave after wave of endorphins.  We were moving in rhythm with the crowd, feeling sweet tides of sound wash through our bodies.  (The overpriced Cosmopolitans and Manhattans didn’t hurt either.)  I could almost forget the fact that many of the kids on the dance floor hadn’t even been born when “Billy Jean” (Michael Jackson) or “Groove Is In The Heart” (Deee-Lite) were released.

After a night of cutting the rug to unrecognized hip hop dance anthems alongside youthful Millennials, we decided to call it a night around half past midnight and headed back to the Metro, grateful for our suburban creature comforts of encroaching middle age.

I leave you with this old dance track from New Order’s 1989 Technique album, called “Fine Time.”  If I had been the deejay, the sets would have contained tracks like this one.



Lyrics:

You’re much too young
To be a part of me
Too young
To get a hold on me

You’re much too young
You’re much too young
You’re much too young
To mess around with me

Hey
You know I’ve met a lot of cool chicks
But I’ve never met a girl with all her own teeth
That’s why I love you babe
That’s why we could be
But you’re too young
Too young

At the end
At the end
At the end
The past doesn’t matter

Repeat (×3)

Hey
Sophisticated lady
You know I’ve met a lot of cool chicks
But you've got style
You’ve got class
But most of all
You’ve got love technique.


1 comment:

  1. I wish they'd played "Fine Time" or something like it. That dance party definitely was not as originally billed, albeit enjoyable nonetheless. I was happy to have only fallen over twice, though disappointed that there weren't better prospects for Eric...

    Seth

    ReplyDelete