My first party in ages!

Today, I arise from the dead in a very hungover fashion. For the first time in two years, I went partying with friends and hence I figured I’d write about it. This party happened at a club named after the stock market… and essentially the ticket was about ten bucks and we still needed to prove that we’re immune, negative or vaccinated (3G-rule). The location (with its two dance floors) had plenty of disinfectant dispensers around but apart from that, it was actually quite “normal”. My partner and two friends met up with me at my apartment where we were “pregaming” (in German: “vorglühen”). The reason for that is that the tickets may be ten bucks but we still would have to get drinks at the party at this club. Getting a long rum n coke for 6 bucks is alright… but I can get a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke for the same price and mix you a lot more rum n cokes at home. So, essentially, we drank at home.

At the club itself, we waited in line for quite some time. I talked to some random people, “made friends” aka I talked to people that won’t remember me given how wasted they were, and well it was the usual. I also met some people that are visiting the same philosophy classes as me, so I’ll most likely chat with them some more sometime. That’s quite cool. Apart from that, the social aspect was a bit underwhelming. I spent a lot of time with my friends and my better half and honestly, just was able to “socialize” with others in the line before the club and on smoke breaks. Speaking of which… Yeah, I was tempted and weak. After a month of “quitting”, I gave in, especially because of the health situation and how stressful that was but no excuses… I’m again trying to quit though. I mean, I smoked a few at the party, left my box of three remaining cigarettes at some drunk person who really appreciated it. “Hey, do you smoke?” – “Yeah” – “Well, here’s my last three. I won’t need them anymore. I’m quitting now” – “Oh, wow, thank you” and they were just baffled.

Hence, today, I’m less focused on the nicotine withdrawal thing and more… I don’t know. I’m tired honestly since we were partying up until 3:30 am and left to get our bus around 4 am. At the same time, I got the buzz going quite a bit but actually not too much, so the hangover isn’t that bad today. I’m just really tired. The good thing with hangovers is that a) you can prevent them by drinking lots of water before you sleep and b) you can eat lots of greasy food and it kinda helps… It at least makes it feel better or at least it makes me feel better. Hence, I’ve ordered two burgers, two portions of fries and a coke zero as a menu “for two people”. It’s cheaper, alright? Also, I’m getting some chilli-cheese nuggets with dips and stuff.

At last, the party had this issue… You had to leave your water bottle outside the actual party because you’re supposed to buy drinks inside… But it’s literally just water and the water was as expensive as some shots from what I could remember, so… not paying for that! Apart from that, that water bottle of mine was stolen and I’m a bit upset about it but hey, whatever… as long as someone else is getting the hydration they need, I’m happy. On another note, the club’s DJ sucked: They basically played songs on that party without transitions and it felt as if they’re that one guy at a party, social gathering or in a car ride that skips the song in the playlist every ten seconds… It was annoying. So, there were some early 2000s hits and 90s stuff, lots of pop and house music, which is… aright. They also played some Hip hop and RnB as well as one or two techno songs at one point before eventually switching to Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” and Greenday’s “American Idiot”, at which point we had to leave to catch the last bus. Don’t get me wrong, I had fun, but I found the music a bit irritating, especially when the DJ shouted “Where are all the 90s kids?!” before playing something from the early 2000s…

There were also other times where the DJ tried to animate the crowd by telling everyone to light up the room with their phones (which failed because they then had to figure out how to turn off their flashlights, spending the next minute fiddling on their phone instead of dancing), going down to your knees and then jumping when the beat dropped (except the beat didn’t really drop, it was quite disappointing), and there were times where the DJ was just flat out irresponsible by a telling a horde of drunks to jump to the “left, left, left, left, right, right, right, right”, and so on… A few people fell and I had to do my best to protect my better half from getting tackled by some drunk weirdos. In fact, my glasses (that I put into my pocket) was bent out of shape and I have some blue spots here and there because of the way that people hit me and/or tackled me last night. Again, don’t get me wrong, I had fun… but it’s irresponsible to do something like that, especially very late into the party. Two people fell to the ground and there were apparently various people that jumped or stepped on them. Nothing super serious (beefy boys) but still if those were some a bit more fragile people, it would have been a nightmare. And I naturally don’t want my partner to get hurt at an event, especially because I invited her, so I did my best to protect her before dragging her and my friends out of the crowd. Frankly, I’ve been at metal concerts and metal clubs where people did go at it harder than in this “moshpit” but nobody there would hit or punch anyone and when people were on the ground, they wouldn’t just continue to fucking jump around or anything. The people there were metalheads, not idiots. This can’t be said for last night’s party. Partly, it’s the DJ’s fault for encouraging this behaviour. Partly, it’s the crowd’s fault for being inconsiderate and ruthless in a way.

The music was alright and I feel like the DJ played it a bit safe by not actually doing remixes or anything and rather just playing one song for 30 seconds and switching to the next one. Later, he mixed “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish with “Satisfaction” by Benny Benassi and it surprisingly worked really well. Would have been cool to see stuff like that more often but the DJ played it safe. My biggest issue is probably that the lack of transitions from one song to another made a lot of the moments there quite… annoying. Going from a fast song to “Gangster’s Paradise”, then switching to something fast again before eventually switching to “Yeah” by Usher… I don’t know. It’s weird. There were these times where I’d just look around and notice how everyone else switched from “enjoying the dancing” to asking “What the fuck is the beat now? Why did it stop? Why is this DJ now again holding a speech about how people couldn’t party for three years?”. “If I was a DJ”, I thought to myself… “I probably wouldn’t be able to do a good job either because I don’t know shit about it…” but I’d at least let a song play for more than 30 seconds when I see that the majority of the crowd is actually really into it… And I wouldn’t hold the same speech for the third time in an hour, especially considering how (and I hate using the word) “cringy” it was. And I wouldn’t animate a crowd of drunks to jump around into various directions. Also, how can you play “Last Resort” and “American Idiot” but not have at least some My Chemical Romance in that playlist?

Either way, the first party was alright. I’m looking forward to future parties, hopefully with better music or at least a playlist that isn’t interrupted half the time, all the time. I really enjoyed the evening. It’s been a while since I’ve been dancing anywhere… and it’s been a while since I was drunk in public. Was nice. Can recommend! (unless you’re in the United States)

Cheers!

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!