Rave at the Arcade: The Night

Last post I said I was playing the July 4th party at the Happy Valley Arcade Bar up in Beacon, and that it was going to be a proper night of house music. Here's how it actually went. Eleven days late, because that's the pace I'm working at right now, and late beats never.

It nearly didn't happen at all.

A big storm came through and took the pool shed clean off its footing. Peeled the siding, popped the windows right out of it. The pool finally came clear though, after all that waiting on the last of the cloudiness to drop out. So the day gave with one hand and took with the other lol

Pool shed lifted off its footing and tilted over, siding peeled back and windows sitting on the ground, beside a clear blue pool in the rain

Getting to Beacon was its own adventure. I could barely make it over. Ethical Drift got stuck on the Taconic, and there was a real moment there where it looked like the whole thing just wasn't going to happen. You spend all that quiet time prepping at home and then the weather gets a vote.

We pushed anyway. Both of us got there.

I opened and played the first hour. That hour isn't really about you. It's about the room deciding it's going to be a night, and your job is just holding the door open until it does. Then Ethical Drift took the second and brought the heat he always brings.

Playing the decks at the Happy Valley Arcade Bar under a mirrorball, one hand up, pinball machines lined along the wall

Then we went back to back for the third, and that's where it really took off.

Back to back is the honest format. Nowhere to hide and no plan to hide behind. You're reading the room and reading each other at the same time, and when it locks in you end up somewhere neither of you would have gone on your own. That third hour is the reason I do this.

Looking out across the decks to the crowd, drinks in hand, arcade cabinets and a Jurassic Park pinball machine lit up behind them

Great night, great dancing, great people. Under a mirrorball, next to a Jurassic Park pinball machine, on the 4th of July, after a storm spent the whole afternoon trying to call it off.

I didn't get usable video off this one, so stills it is. That one's on me. It's also the kind of thing I get a little better at every time out. Every gig I learn a bit more and come a bit better prepared, and honestly that's the whole trick. Keep showing up, keep closing the gap.

These last two aren't from that night. Just from around then, same summer. They're here because this is what the valley looks like when it isn't trying to take your shed off.

A barge and tug on the Hudson at sunset, seen from a bridge walkway, pink clouds over the far bank

Dusk over the Hudson Valley, pink and orange sky above wooded hills and a bend in the river

And like I said last time, it gets more regular from here.