Pop Culture Buzz

I am a huge dance music fan. I love Burning Man, Halloween parties and the many different kinds of techno inspired events that take place here in the S.F. bay area. I went to my first “rave” here in 1993 when I was still in high school, it was called “Cyberfest”. I saw the progression of dance music, underground parties and raves evolve at a fast pace. It has been a long time since I have been to a full fledged rave like the one I went to this past weekend called “POP” with Kaskade, Infected Mushroom, DJ Dan and Benny Benasi. At the end of the night I was calling this event “babies first rave”. 5 minutes into the show some kid felt it necessary to tell me this was his first rave…..ahh, how cute.

As soon as I entered the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium I was overwhelmed by the blinking pacifiers, glow sticks, candy ravers and costumes. Secondly I noticed how fucking young everyone was at the event. The crowd looked like it was full of high school kids. Being 31 years old, I really wasn’t expecting to feel so old, but these kids were still wet behind their ears. The boys looked like Abercrombie & Fitch models, the girls looked like jail bait. And after many hours of “cruising” I couldn’t find one cluster of gay boys or lesbians. This was a young, straight event and I was in for a night of silliness and confusion.

The element of gangster and hip-hop lovers at this concert confused me, is electronic music now for the “thug” types too? The break dancers and dance circles were full of hip-hop gangster wannabees and that was something I had never seen at the early raves of the 90’s. I am glad to see that even though the culture is changing as far as style and influences, that the “good vibes” and “brotherly love” were still abundant. I didn’t see any fights or sexist behavior, it was a bunch of adults (kinda) acting silly and having fun. It would have been nice to see more gay boys (slutty gay boys) but all in all it was a fun flashback to the old times.

Kaskade came on like a wave, within 5 minutes the crowd grew in size in the room he was spinning in. He played a huge set and kept the house diva beats going, I was in heaven. Kaskade played some of his all time favorites like “Everything”, and some new gems “Sorry”, “Stars Align” and “Be Still”. But the best part of his set was the weaving of pop songs like Madonna’s “Jump” towards the end of his performance. The crowd lost their shit. I have to say his charisma and style were meshing well with the dancers and the over all vibe. And for all of you DJ whores out there, he is hot as hell. Really though, Kaskade is so good looking it was painful! I had a great time and got to hear my all time favorite DJ from S.F. spin fun records that didn’t try to be anything more than the dance tunes they were.