noches gigantes

I stood there, among the dispersed listeners at the back of the pitchfork crowd, and the Hold Steady opened with “Massive Nights.” I thought to myself how those kinds of nights had been few and far between lately.

The summer began with two epic weekends; one at the beach, one in the city, but quickly simmered into a quiet small town molasses pace. Even once I was back in a city, the drinking and late nights could hardly be described as massive.

But that song seemed to foreshadow the immediate future. As the Hold Steady finished their set, Animal Collective began setting up for their headline set. I noted the frontman’s red hat—it looked just like mine. A few minutes later, two of the Fleet Foxes band members stood directly in front of me, talking to a woman in white cowboy boots, not nearly as cool as my sister’s. To my right were a collection of three mud people, covered in deep black Midwestern soil, liquefied by earlier rains, then hardening like body paint on clothing, shoes, limbs, and faces alike, dancing with flailing arms, and shaking asses. But when the set ended abruptly, it seemed as if it would all be downhill. The hipsters and hippies spilled onto the street, most waiting for buses or trains, but like us, many people joined an eastward migration on foot. It felt like a protest with the only message being an unwillingness to accept that the music was over.

Fortunately the three of us, all coincidentally clothed in white v neck t shirts, had another destination. MC had heard there would be an after party in our friend Jacob’s basement. With only the bikers traveling faster, we arrived in the first wave and made small talk while sitting on the hood of some old white car parked in the back yard. The yard slowly filled with people who looked more ridiculous than an urban outfitters catalog, surpassing even my experiences in East Williamsburg. Every man wore tight pants, a plaid button up or an ironic t shirt and painfully quirky glasses. Hairstyles varied, but ranged between bed head and alfalfa cowlicks. My favorite women’s look involved turquoise ankle boots, a vintage yellow dress that extended approximately ½” below the ass and white gloved hands which clutched an Old Style can. Even Ida’s converse, plaid pants and fanny pack were no match for this apparel.

As Jacob frenzied to get his drum in the basement, a trio of men dressed distinctively less hip than possibly everyone at the party, excepting the three white v necked t shirt wearers, walked around the side of the house. One wore a red hat just like mine.

Shortly after, we filed into the basement and Jacob’s band, Mung played a quick set, then No Age played before an infinitely more densely packed basement. As their set wore on, filling what had earlier seemed like a very spacious basement with vibrations and reverberations, and a number of people dancing under a thin water pipe seemed to be using it for support. The pipe bent like a spring twig in their hands.

Given my three flooding incidents this summer, I felt a fourth was inevitable. The three v necks decided to move to the back of the crowd. The set ended shortly thereafter and the crowd filed to the backyard. The yard was filled at this point, shoulder to shoulder with people infinitely more “hip” than we were. We checked a phone for the time and concurred maybe it was time to end the night, even without a sound from or conversation with Animal Collective. It took about five minutes to squeeze off the porch, around the side of the house, and onto the sidewalk. We got about halfway down the block when the sky opened up and filled the space between clouds and concrete with rain. It was one of those sudden unexpected torrential downpours that instantaneously created pools where curbs once were and made our raincoats, still in tow after that morning’s rains, totally ineffective.

After waiting a time for the bus, we decided the best plan of action would be walking to the nearest thoroughfare and hoping for a taxi. The plan proved effective, and after dropping MC off at the blue line, we continued to the red line Fullerton stop. We arrived on the Northbound platform, to find it empty; never a hopeful sign late at night. But we sat with our backs resting on a pole with a large F sign, and waited. And waited. And waited. Nearly an hour later, the platform having now filled with riders, an announcement was made apologizing for the delay. A train would be arriving shortly.Once on the train, our car was quite a side show. Next to us, two men bantered barbershop style. At the other end of the car, a group of college age men sang Bohemian Rhapsody. At the door near us, a young man gave unsolicited love advice to a middle aged business man who had just bid farewell to a woman he only first met on Thursday. After another 45 minutes and much hubbub about the train switching to express, we arrived at our stop and finally made it home safely.

(red hat + old style cans = not quite hipster)