The Juice Box

Labor Day weekend has come and gone, and summer is officially, in many places, over. This weekend celebrates the end of the season in many ways, as tens of thousands of people flocked to Nevada and Black Rock City for Burning Man, summer BBQs are held and with a 3 day weekend the dance parties are in force.

I was able to catch the burning of the man via the live stream video from the playa, and I was emotionally moved not being there again this year. The fireworks display was grand, but this year’s man was stubborn and would not come down easily, standing well beyond the beyond the burning of the structure around him. If playa dreams come true, I might return next year.

Additionally several dance parties hit the city and I have heard great reviews from Wunderland, mixed reviews from Fresh, and the one party I made it to, Sanctuary is written up below.

Sanctuary

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Bottles of Water

by Jim ‘Juicy Fruit’ Hauck

We arrived at Club 1015 at about 1015 (ironic – not really it was planned). The security staff was friendly and welcomed us and the entire entrance process went on without a hitch and we were in.

Inside the club we were greeted by a music set from DJ John Le Page that I would say was probably one of the best I have ever heard him spin. The depth of the music made me happy that I had missed Fresh and I was right now getting a dose of T-Dance before hitting the darker beats later in the evening. John did not disappoint through the entire night with great vocals, harder driving tracks and some really amazing mixtures of sounds and textures. I was in heaven for the first half of the night. This sadly changed as DJ Alexander took the decks, and while danceable, the music did have a few refrains of “Silverware and Boots in The Dryer”. However, as the evening progressed even Alexander was able to recover the music and give me some renewed dance energy before finally calling it a night at 430AM. The music journey of the evening was certainly a great primer for the return to Club 1015 in 3 weeks for REAL BAD XXI.

It is also noteworthy to mention that Club 1015 has done some work in the main dance room to clean up the lighting situation. As you may recall, shortly after REAL BAD XX the club installed a new main room lighting package that was very similar to those used at REAL BAD. The have now removed the old center console lighting right, leaving just the mirror ball to go up and down and rotate. The lights have been set up in a grid on the ceiling, giving much more visual affect as the lights move and making the box feel bigger and taller for some reason. Great work Club 1015 for continuing to rework this gem and last of the big box night clubs.

Finally the crowd was in many ways everything I could hope for at a Sanctuary. It was a friendly group of guys, smiling, sharing and laughing as they danced – furry, muscular, average, but all having fun and seeming happy to be there with each other. However, there was the one exception of a tragic mess that danced on the stage with his pants down at his ankles and threatening to remove underwear too – seriously it was like watching an accident happening and being powerless to stop it as he attempted to bump and grind like some scary exotic dancer. I wondered if his friends simply abandoned him to look like this or they were the group near the go-go boxes frantically working the cell phones and posting pictures on Facebook. Other than that I met many more wonderful new people that made for a great night of dancing and sharing on the floor.

OK, The Juice is tired and is going to put himself to sleep. See you under the mirror ball soon.