Parties
Microburst Hits Roseland: Blood on the Dancefloor by Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle
EDGE ContributorSaturday Oct 31, 2009
This past August, New Yorkers discovered that Mother Nature had yet another weapon in her arsenal of inclement weather: a sudden and violent storm called a microburst that wreaks havoc on the landscape-and last night at Roseland, an even more fearsome microburst hammered the crowd-and this one was called Peter Rauhofer. Emerging from an immense cloud cover, following a thundering set by DJ Paulo, Rauhofer threw down a tutorial on drama, a lesson in theatrics complete with lightning bolt lasers and an anthemic and scream-filled "Sing With Me" as an opener that seemed both apocalyptic and inspirational-and surged through the Roseland crowd like a blood transfusion.
Of course, this was Blood on the Dancefloor-and by the time Zeus Rauhofer emerged from on high, Paulo had been on a chainsaw tirade, drawing blood, making blood, WORKing blood with a pounding set that kept a crowd of dismembered and barely-clothed boyz reaching for the rafters and screaming for more. Literally screaming. No joke. One might think that after all these months, Kelly and David’s "When Love Takes Over" might have worn out its welcome-but not when Paulo had his way with it, dissecting the love-filled paean into steaming pieces and making it more bass-driven and propulsive than an erstwhile summer anthem.
Beautifully ominous lighting and a hailstorm of lasers
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With a set design encompassing a stage-length, blood-splattered chainsaw, and nettiing above the floor filled with bloody body parts and severed heads (thereby giving new meaning to the concept of a body parts shop), and with an entire underworld team of blood sports go-go boyz, Roseland resembled nothing so much as your nightmare nightclub in Hell. Even more than the set and the video screen montage fracturing Rauhofer’s visage with Chucky’s, it was the beautifully ominous lighting and a hailstorm of lasers by the demonically gifted triumvirate Darren Kawa, Alan, and AJ, which made this party analogous to a deliriously rapid descent into the interior of the planet’s core.
Screams punctuated the night. Blood-curdling screams that spurred the crowd of ghouls to dance even harder. Costumes, for the most part, had long been tossed into the inferno, leaving Alex B. and James as angels without wings, and Jake and Billy as construction WORKers, complete with Caution: Men @ WORK signage, as well as a litter of bunnies, wide-eyed as they wandered lost in Hell. All the usual demons were in attendance, including Chris and Eddie, Pat, Michael Circuit Dancer 2.0, Tommy, JP, Vito Fun, Frankie Aviance, Joe Carolina, South Beach Carlos, as well as a surreal gaggle of depraved club kids, led by the Reindeer King Ralphy, all of whom appeared to be the hallucinogenic progeny of Salvador Dali and Morticia Addams.
Men at WORK, proceed with caution
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With a courteous staff and the courtly James doing door, as well as Rauhofer’s crackerjack technical and support team, Blood on the Dancefloor was a party that never spilled blood unnecessarily. And when Peter took over the crypt at three am, once he’d made it perfectly clear who was in complete control with his "Sing With Me" opener, he followed with the query, "Are you ready to dance, muthafuckas?" And dance they did: like a crowd of red-shoed zombies dancing to their graves to a set that included "Paparazzi," and Madonna, and Peter’s righteous reworking of Cerrone’s chestnut "Supernature," a particularly resonant remix given its timely message of genetic mutation. Or as one song had it, "What you need, what you want, what you have"-it was all there at Blood on the Dancefloor.
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Blood on the Dancefloor photo-album
Long-term New Yorkers, Mark and Robert have also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. With a PhD in American history and literature, Mark is the author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE. Robert is the producer of the documentary WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF GOD. Their work has appeared in numerous publications, as well as at : www.mrny.com.
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