Jess and I heard from Courtney that one of our very favorite DJs in the whole world, Paul Oakenfold, was playing in Beijing on Friday night, for the wee fee of 100 yuan (~$12). We immediately reserved our tickets online via the club's website. To put this in perspective, Paul Oakenfold is probably the best known trance/house DJ's in the world. He mixed an album called Tranceport that I had my junior year in high school which I listened to religiously. Paul Oakenfold's work introduced me to the world of trance and house music in general, so I owe him a lot. Plus, the club was called GT Banana. How could we pass this up?
As news of the Oakenfold mania spread, more and more people wanted to come. The more the merrier, Jess and I said! In the end, we had a crew of about 10 students, but split into three groups arriving at different times from different parts of the city. Panos, Jess, Hunter and myself set off from the FX hotel around 8:30pm. I decided to take the subway, because it cost only 2 yuan and there was a stop nearby. Panos wanted to take a cab (he also takes offense to my insistence on walking what I consider to be a proper rate of speed, but he is Greek after all so it makes sense) but I talked him into it. As it turned out, taking the train was a smart move because it killed time before the event, we got to take the purple line, which most people hadn't before, and we still had time before hitting the club to eat some food and get a drink at TGI Fridays across the street.
We met up with the crew and headed into the club. GT Banana's decor was very Star Trek: The Next Generation--lots of silver and white, pod-like booths, flashing lights and a general cool futuristic theme. There were quite a lot of foreigners (mostly British) but a lot of Chinese as well. The club set in Beijing is quite different from the normal types you see on the street. A lot of very flashy, trendy and quite frankly, tacky clothes. Big hair, lots of skimpy clothes on the women, and a lot of skinny Chinese girls looking hungrily at the foreign men. I was quite pleased I wore my trusty 5" heels because I could see over the sea of shorties and people could find me quite easily.
We got to the club around 11pm, expecting Oakenfold to go on around 1am (ugh, no 2am shut-offs like in LA), so we knew we were in for a long wait. There were other DJ's playing, who were OK. I smartly brought earplugs and used them, as we were standing in front of a speaker, which vibrated my innards at every thump. Apparently the management of GT Banana decided to go for money rather than safety on Friday night, as they were completely over capacity. They kept letting in people! I felt as though I were a pinball in a machine full of tiny, moving Chinese people. It was horrible. Finally we decided to leave even though Paul hadn't gone on. It was just so sweaty and packed and I felt like if there were an emergency, we'd all die from trampling or being crushed.
We took a cab to Vics, which is by Worker's Stadium in Sanlituan (and next door to the confusingly similarly named "Mix"). Vics was thankfully considerably less crowded, and the air conditioning was working. Most of us had gotten our hands stamped at GT Banana, so we were able to get into Vics without having to pay a cover. Bonus!
We closed the night out at Vics, I took Jess home around 2:30 and convinced Panos to come with us to save money on the cab. Tracy, Charlie, Matt and Hunter stayed out later (bold!). I was a little sad that I didn't get to see Paul Oakenfold, but Panos did point out that Jess and I could go home, put on some of Paul's music, turn off the lights, get some glowsticks and just have our own dance party--without getting bumped by a million people. Good point, Panos!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment