DJs Spin Out an Entrancing Marathon Rave

Monday night’s epic dance party at the Shrine Expo Hall, which featured hot DJs of the moment Jimmy Van M and Sasha & John Digweed, was an attempt to bring the underground above ground and create an ersatz rave that would drone on into the wee hours of Independence Day. The crowd was a Babel of pop styles and attitudes: Lapsed Deadheads found a new communal refuge, women dressed like porn stars, and curious college kids found an excuse to dance.

The star attractions kept themselves at a remove from the audience members, throwing down their vertiginous beats from the venue’s wrap-around balcony while massive speakers placed around the perimeter of the dance floor pounded incessantly. That allowed the crowd to home in on itself and form its own amorphous, human genome of movement.

Because the techno subgenre being served up on Monday was trance, there were lots of entry points in which to catch a marathon groove. Instead of the rapid-fire hysteria of drum-and-bass, trance works its changes incrementally. At the Shrine, the hard beats were sheathed in glistening, Technicolor sound constructs that soothed as they struck; the bass drum pulse kept thrusting and parrying through billowing keyboard sunbursts and swelling synthesizers. Which is why trance was the perfect drug for those hardy souls who needed its narcotic rush to last seven hours.