POST PANDEMIC LIVE REVIEW: Tales From a Sober Person at a Day Rave
Never in my life did I think I’d be saying this – but I missed the smell of a bar. I missed the way my shoes stuck to the floor. I missed strangers stumbling into me and slurring sorry.
I anticipated a certain degree of uncertainty at my first show in over a year – but I felt pretty much normal at the Canada Day opening of a three-day Summer Block Party at Union Hall. Thursday’s event lasted around seven hours and included sets from DJ Hypasonic, Seelo, Terell Safadi (spelled Terrel Safadi on the concert flyer), Keys N Krates, and the headliner, Roy Wood$ (pronounced Roy Woods, not Roy Woodollarsign, believe it or not).
The main events take place outside, but Union Hall remained open so concert-goers could escape the extreme heat. People seemed apprehensive to take up space anywhere but up against the venue walls. A girl yells, “Everybody, get the fuck on the dancefloor!” – in a similar way I imagine someone would yell while robbing a bank. A fruitless endeavour – no one joins her. It is still early though – only 5:45 pm. Maybe people are still scared. Maybe they’re shy. Maybe they haven’t had enough to drink yet.
At first, it takes me a second to realize that there is even a DJ playing. I think it actually took the DJ a second to realize that there was a DJ playing. The set started in a way I can only describe as someone’s Spotify Party Bangers playlist. But it picked up quickly with unique remixes of songs like Reel 2 Real’s I Like to Move It, Icona Pop’s I Love It, and a song that people go absolutely feral for – Mr. Brightside by the Killers. A good warm-up (well, better than the lonely drunk girl yelling for people to join her on the dancefloor).
I couldn’t pin down one clear aesthetic with the audience; there was no dress code here. It’s like all the junior high cliques finally found peace: Emo kids dancing with preps dancing with nerds. Some people looked like they’ve prepared for this show for months, and others as though they heard the party from down the street and stumbled over from their day job. The main clear distinction in attire was between those who chose to wear orange and those who chose red and white. Whenever the two groups converge on a space I am momentarily expecting some political altercation, but no. Not here and not now. Everyone is, and I do not use this word lightly, vibing. One piece of attire that, before March 2020, I would expect to see at this type of event (a rave) is almost entirely absent: No one is wearing a mask.
Still though, for the next set – Seelo’s – the crowd is uncharacteristically dispersed. But again, I really can’t tell if it is the heat, the nerves, or the daily 70-some active Covid cases. Despite the occasional six-foot gaps between bodies, the space is filling up.
Seelo’s set had what sounded to me like one consistent four-to-the-floor loop throughout. Maybe I don’t get EDM, but his performance started kind of fun and very quickly became background noise to his audience members’ conversations. I think the turning pointwas when he mixed in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I liked it, but it was lost on the increasingly intoxicated crowd. I don’t know what else to say about Seelo other than that he was making direct and intimate eye contact with one person in the audience. Who? We may never know.
It’s hour three and I’m getting tired. An audience member joins me in the shade to tell me he thinks that, “Everyone looks like they’re on drugs.” The DJ sets are blurring together.
Terell Safadi was next. He rapped valiantly against the chatter of the audience to little avail. People were here as much, if not more so, to socialize as they were to listen to the music. Safadi sure was hyping himself up though! The energy was high, the hook was all right, that’s it.
Between performers, I asked around if people were Roy Wood$ fans. Most of them said they were only there for the party. Nothin’ else to do. One attendee told me they also came for Keys N Krates. They told me that they liked the one song that went “dum dum dee dum dum.” Um. That could be literally any of them. When Keys N Krates took the stage I couldn’t help but feel as though they were being ever so slightly slept on. Their set was dynamic and exciting and too many people were crowded by the bar. Like, come on, the man mixed Paul Simon’s I Know What I Know and MIA’s Bucky Done Gun together seamlessly.
People looked like they were beginning to have more fun as the sun went down. They gained momentum and excitement and drink tickets and appeared to be dangerously close to their breaking points.
At long last, after five hours in 30 plus weather, the headliner took the stage. Roy Wood$ entered wearing an Oilers jersey, orange in remembrance of the Indigenous children who lost their lives in residential schools to the Canadian genocide, and in solidarity with the Indigenous people who are victims of the continued violence inflicted by the Canadian government. Partway into his set, Wood$ insists on a moment of silence. The chatter stops then, with bowed heads and raised fists.
He played his hit – Drama featuring Drake – early in his set. Very bold move. I was pleasantly caught off guard by his vocal ability and his minimal use of vocal tracking. Unfortunately for Wood$, though, I think a five-hour EDM build-up for an hour-long R&B finale was simply a weird choice. People hit their peak and were coming down. The crowd was thinning out half an hour into the show. Those who remained were socializing more than they are watching the show, which is a shame. This is no fault of Wood$. He had high energy and interacted with the crowd directly. I began to think my hypothesis, that perhaps only a handful of the attendees actually came to see Wood$, was correct. Until I spoke with self-proclaimed OG fan, Robin. Through teary eyes, she said, “Roy Wood$ helped me through the most painful times of my life.”
Shortly after Robin and I spoke, a group of friends could be heard chanting “Roy Wood$ sucks!” When I asked them why they said that, they said they only caught the last five minutes and were bored already. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose.
