In 2003, the U.S. Congress sought to end American rave culture. Through a series of legislation, capped by the wittily titled Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act, lawmakers made organizing and attending these events "featuring loud, pounding dance music" such a financial and legal liability that not even the bravest promoters or most ravaged ecstasy casualties were willing to risk lengthy jail sentences and small fortunes to grind, weave and perspire until sunrise.
In the years following the RAVE Act, however, promoters and partiers looked desperately for ways around the law. By hiding the scene in inconspicuous rural venues and telling as few people about it as possible, promoters sustained the culture, though on a lesser, more dangerous scale. Given all of the legal finagling and delicate, hush-hush handling it took to move America's live electronic music culture off its deathbed and put it on life support, it is ironic that the single raviest experience I have had since 2003 was born of perhaps the most brutishly simple idea: to have a rave, put a lot of people in a sketchy room with a band that plays loud electronic music, and turn the lights off.
Though I am almost sure that recapturing the spirit of America's besieged rave culture wasn't a priority of Great Big Shows, the organizers of STS9's triumphant return to Nashville ("The Music City" to locals, "Ca$hville" to me), that was exactly what they did. By cramming a big-draw, electronica-leaning band in the utilitarian environs of The City Hall entertainment space, GBS unwittingly helped achieve the crowded, sweaty, ultimately blissful experience of the raging dance spectacles of old.
Before the RAVE Act drove mega-huge dance parties to romantic locales like rural bowling alleys, rural roller rinks and rural abandoned buildings, the best places to accommodate the sweaty hordes were warehouses. They were cheap and generally roomy enough to hold the tons of people that promoters hoped would come, and cleaning up the open room afterwards was easy. Best of all, the eerie, industrial setting provided the perfect aesthetic compliment to the sketchy behavior (drug deals, date rape, weird dancing) that would run rampant inside.
In City Hall, a renovated warehouse in an uninhabited part of the Ca$h, GBS chose an ugly, uncomfortable and unwelcoming venue that couldn't have been any ravier. When I say "warehouse," I mean exactly that: this show was held in a long, narrow rectangular room. There wasn't even an attempt to hide the cold, metallic ceiling rafters or make the narrow stage more visible to the hundreds of people forced to the back of the venue. There was no air conditioning, not even ceiling fans, and the only places to sit down were in cheap plastic fold-out chairs someone had haphazardly shoved to one side of the room.
It sounds terrible, and to be fair, it was, but in an endearing way. Like small, pre-2003 raves, the whole ordeal felt like it was thrown together by a relatively unprofessional fan-boy/girl who booked the show simply because he/she wanted to go to it. Again, none of this was intentional; City Hall is considered one of Ca$h's premier venues, and the only club big enough to contain the droves that STS9 has been attracting on their fall tour. Nonetheless, whether they meant to or not, GBS organized a show that, on the surface, had the trappings of one made illegal in 2003.
But the venue can only go so far to create a vibe. Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie is playing a show there in May, and I guarantee you that rager won't feel like a rave. Without STS9 rampaging through banger after glitch-sampling, drum-and-bass-rooted, booty-shaking banger, City Hall is just a stupid room that has shows.
On this particular night, the band very clearly had their A-game, and it was on immediately. The stomping synths of "You Don't Say" melted into the spooky drum-and-bass of "Mischief of a Sleepwalker," and by the end of the second song, the whole room was covered in sweat. In a first set of rousing techno and traditional fan favorites, "Abcees," which debuted in February, stood out as the superstar. Dark, grimy and full of twisted low-end bass, it sounds like Massive Attack scoring an arty horror film 150 years from now - and that's before the downright filthy dub improv at the end.
At set break, the line at the bar was unbearably long, mostly inundated with underage kids buying water. By the looks of their pupils, some of them were quenching their Ecstasy-induced thirst, but some of them were sweating simply because it was the most horribly hot room they had ever been in. Thousands of roused bodies and no air conditioning isn't a good combination, and it is a miracle that no one died at City Hall. I was so exhausted at the start of the second half that part of me wished for a slow-burning second set and a massage.
Deep down, the set of electro-bangers was just what I wanted. During the finicky glitch-hop of "One A Day," the sample-laden heat of "Instantly," and the techno-raunch of "F. Word," the room literally shook from the force of the dancing inside. I have seen better shows in my life, but I have never been to a better dance party than the one STS9 catered in Ca$hville.
When I first fell in love with this band, it was because they made beautiful, spiritual music that spoke to parts of my life I wasn't even aware existed. The last year has seen STS9 eschew the uplifting, pathological side of their music for less organic, more celebratory dancey numbers, and until recently, I really lamented that. But having been repeatedly consumed in the intense dance-party madness they now provide, I am coming around. After the RAVE Act, it is hard to remember that convening with thousands of people in a sh-tty room to dance all night is a uniquely liberating experience, one that I hope STS9 continues to provide until I can't dance any more.
Mikey Goralink is a sophomore majoring in American studies. He can be reached at Michael.Goralnik@tufts.edu.
