Spundae Re-Opening at Circus 3/5/05 review

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-- Spundae Re-Opening at Circus 3/5/05 review

Posted by raveballs on Mar-11-2005 07:21:

Spundae Re-Opening at Circus 3/5/05 review

Everytime Christopher Lawrence comes into town, my friend Tage makes me bring her to see him. We�ve been going to see him spun since early �98. The first trance tape I ever heard was Prophecy (back in �97), his Rise cd was the first trance cd I�d ever bought. So it�s both tradition and nostalgia for me to hear a Christopher set. After I took a nice 90 minute nap, I picked my friend up from her house and left Thousand Oaks by 10PM (early for her).

We listened to the new Christopher cd, Un-Hooked, on the way there. There was an unusual amount of traffic and gridlock in the intersections around Vine & Santa Monica Blvd. All of the parking lots around Circus were filled. We pulled into a tiny parking area that�s gate was still open, but found no spots. Then I had to back up, being careful not to scrape any of the packed-like-sardines cars. We drove around the neighborhood looking for street parking, when finally I remembered where we�d parked another night. Just west of Highland, adjacent to a Public Storage building, there was metered parking. It�s a nice spot�not too far from the club and well lit (plus free parking). I prepared my vodka & Red Bull and took a half-pill of Ripped Fuel. When I had a good buzz going, we quickly made our way to the Groovetickets tent to pick up our $20 presale tickets (it was $25 at the door). With that, we were ushered to the front of the line, searched and let in. Security didn�t seem very strict when searching. I think they were mainly concerned with weapons. It was about 11:15PM by then. (I hear the club was filled to capacity sometime after midnight.)

After dropping Tage off in her spot, stage-right by the speakers, I made a bee-line for the restroom. I laughed as I saw a girl in line inside the men�s bathroom. The girl�s bathroom was three times as long for most of the night. Just as I walked out of the bathroom, a random guy greeted me. He knew my name, but I honestly told him, for the life of me, that I didn�t recognize him. It was Eric S., someone who I went to elementary school with (and was about the same height, too). I asked him how the hell he recognized me and he said that of course he�d remember the �other� Eric at our school. But also, that we�d met at the Arena (with Erich Haemmerle) across the way on Halloween weekend. Now this was a bit alarming, because I had absolutely zero recollection of this. Even though I was very drunk that night in October, and events later that morning overshadowed anything that had happened previous, it was still scary that I couldn�t recall that I�d met before. I think coincidences and random encounters are special, so I would�ve made a mental note (apparently not). I found out that one of his roommates was deejay Kristina Sky (who I�d randomly met at Grooveriders in Sherman Oaks last October). I was beginning to feel like we really are all plugged into the Matrix.

I went outside to use my cell phone, and a guy with two girls came up to me. He asked if I could let his friends into the hidden corner (behind the hooka lounge) to pee, because they couldn�t wait in that long line. Women sure were resorting to desperate measures because of those lines! I stepped aside and chatted with him while they were doing their business. The conversation led to computers, and I mentioned the Commodore 64. He told me he loved the game Bruce Lee. As his female friend came out of the corner, she had a three-foot-long barbed wire spiral attached to the back of her dress and was dragging it with her. I told him that I�d never seen that before!

I wondered back into the club and checked out the smaller house room. They were spinning some good deep house in there. Gabriel & Dresden were spinning a four-hour set in the main room, but I was conserving my energy for Christopher. I ran into John, an old acquaintance of mine, outside the double-doors by the bathroom. While he was telling me about a new club he was promoting downtown, I spotted a triple-folded bill at my feet. I promptly picked it up and put it in my pocket. It was $20 (that was the cost of my ticket to get in). Usually when you find money, it�s in the darkness on the dance club�s floor. This was in a well-lit, heavy traffic walkway right outside the bathroom. I guess luck was with me that night!

I explored the upstairs lounge, found a seat, and cracked open my 6� glowsticks (pink & blue). Downstairs, Christopher was just stepping up to the deejay booth: it was about 1:15AM now. I saw a guy standing next to me and he was shorter than I was (5�4�). I joked with him about how there�s always one guy shorter than me at a club, and he shook my hand. I met up with Tage again by her speaker, where she was chilling with Matt, a guy she�s met previously at Circus, and an Asian guy who was at his first party. I guess Tage had given him my green bracelet glowstick. I let him keep it, but borrowed his two blue glosticks (so now I had two pair). I danced towards the back of the club, where there was more room. I like to clear a space around where I dance, kicking empty water bottles and flyers/napkins toward the walls. I can�t remember doing that in a long time, but I used to play �soccer� all the time when I first started raving. Eventually, as I�m apt to do, I hopped up on one of the pedestal�s in the middle of the dance floor and just went off. Christopher�s set is just relentless, with no big build-ups or breakdowns to catch your breath: just record after record of pounding, European hard trance. I believe he spun a very hard remix of Lost Tribe�s �Gamemaster� that I really enjoyed. I danced until the last record was spun, around 4:15AM.

We went up to talk to Christopher after his set was over. I wanted to get my original pressing of his Rise cd cover art signed, but I�d forgotten it in the car. Tage encouraged me to ask him if he needed a CDR copy of his Contact promotional cassette to check ebay. He laughed and said to share it with my friends. I told him that Rise was my first trance cd I�d ever heard and that Tage turned me onto it. He said, �I guess I have her to thank then.� I asked him about another set I had that was similar to rise, and he said that it was probably his Prophecy promo tape. That was actually the first time I ever heard trance. I mentioned how everytime I saw him back in 1998, he was spinning with Thomas Michael (he agreed that spun a lot together). Tage asked him if he�d lost weight. He answered that he had because he was getting �love handles.� When the Asian guy told Christopher that this was his first party, he joked back �It�s all downhill from here!� Props to the security guards who didn�t hassle us by letting a bunch of us stay and talk to Christopher.

On our way out of the club, I came across two nice hats that I�d picked up. After washing them, I�ll give them away to friends. I also picked up a Polaroid photo of an Asian couple sitting together on the couch behind the deejay booth (if this is your lost photo, email me). Matt walked with Tage and I to my car, and I drove them to his. As I was driving home, I grew very hungry and got some fish and chips at Jack in the Box. As I ate, I watched a Saturday Night Live episode I�d taped earlier that night with Queen Latifah. There was a hilarious fake commercial about shaving your pubes that I�d never seen. With that, I went to bed, sometime after 6AM, and awoke after 10AM. Does anyone else have as much trouble as I do after drinking Red Bull all night?