Usually when I have a free weekend it is spent studying all day so that I can rage all night at a metal or rock concert. One-half of a wall in my bedroom is covered in tickets that I have saved from the concerts I've attended over a five-year period. On the other hand, my boyfriend is a big fan of EDM, specifically future house, deep house, and drum n' bass. So when I saw that his favorite DJ (Tchami) was putting on a show in Gainesville a couple days before our one-year anniversary, I bought tickets to surprise him. This was my first EDM show in a club and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.
These are the 10 things that happened at my first EDM show:
1. I was surrounded by University of Florida frat boys in uniforms.
Ranging from football jerseys with their last names to plain polos with Greek letters, all of them wore some style of khakis with boat shoes, and exuded white privilege. It was dfiferent from the usual wear-all-black, boot-wearing crowd I'm used to (it honestly felt like I was in Neighbors).
2. I saw the dirtiest bathroom in my entire life.
No locks on any of the doors, no soap or paper towels, and the floor was flooded with god-knows-what which carried leftover "items" everywhere...seriously? Possibility for pandemic much? Granted, I have been to metal and rock festivals where there were only port-a-johns but at least they had locks and there were separate wash stations set up.
3. The opening acts were unannounced and passed through without a care from the audience.
In fact, it was more like walking into a sex bar than a concert with the many couples pinned against the wall eating each other's face, but I tried to make the most out of the time by learning a shuffle flow from the dancers around me. It was kind of sad because at the concerts I usually go to the opening acts are a great chance to listen to new and upcoming music, and you might even catch them outside after the show, which has happened to me before and it's a great experience.
4. It was surprisingly easy to make our way to the front, until the main act came on.![]()
Once the room darkened, the crowd went into a frenzy and my boyfriend and I were shoved to the side and over a fence. Everyone took out their phones to record it so we did the same then went to the back.
5. A really drunk girl knocked beer all over me and other bystanders.
Yup, we were standing next to a low podium that had nearly-full beer bottles on it and when she stumbled up to us she shoved the bottles off in our direction so beer poured all down my shirt and legs.
6. I saw another girl cut and sniff a line of cocaine in the VIP section while her friends cheered her on.
It was, uh, interesting...
7. A doped-up guy in an Umbreon onesie told me that my dancing reminded him of Irish clogging.
I didn't take it personally. I'm used to moshing and head-banging, not shuffling, but he was really nice and talked to my boyfriend and I a bit until he said, "I have to melt back into the shadows. I'm Umbreon," and then proceeded to do so.
8. A girl in an LED feather boa stroked my face with it and said, "Remember you're beautiful."
It was a very touching moment (hehe) and she did the same to my boyfriend. I felt as though we were blessed by an EDM entity.
9. I saw amazing hula-hoopers, glovers, and poi dancers.
These people carved a hole for them in the back to show off their cool moves with LED flow toys. For those of you who don't know, glovers are people who have gloves with LED lights in the tips that they move around quickly to create an illusion of floating lights and poi is a pair of LED sacks attached to long strings that the dancer twirls around them.
10. My boyfriend and I did shuffle moves that we learned from YouTube.
When my anxiety subsided, we eventually were able to hop into the dance circle and shuffle in sync. It was a lot of fun and so much better than getting pummeled to the ground by burly middle-aged men. Plus, it was nice to hear people cheering for us.
All in all, it was an exciting night. Tchami was fantastic, we met some friends that we found out live right down the road from us, and I may have lost a good bit of my hearing.
