Folsom Europe 2008




The place had no restrooms, so folks had to tramp into a field next door where several big trailers were parked. Not a big deal, really, except that the continuous light rain rendered the field into gelatinous grey muck very quickly. Some guys were not happy about ruining their "show" boots. The coat check was also outside, about a hundred feet past the trailers, so some of the nakeder guys arrived shivery and wet.
As tends to be the case these days, I wasn't crazy about the music of DJ Jack Chang, who played a trancier take on typical circuit tribal without a single vocal for the 6.5 hours I was there. (You can download Chang's set here.) Still, he did throw in a number of beautiful swirly dropouts, which I love, but are the bane of America's teeth-grinding party boys. The sound was pretty good for such a big bare room - not overloud, but strong enough to rattle a harness on the dance floor. One nice bonus of such a large space - the temperature stayed a perfect 75 the entire time. On the downside, the ceiling (about 70-80 feet high) was made entirely of glass, so the morning light seemed to dampen spirits a bit by around 6am.
Peering over a rail into a basement space around 2am, I spied what I thought was the usual American-style party boy resuscitation food area - fruit, cookies, etc. But much later in the party I wandered down to find it was a full restaurant, including a crepe station. A crepe station, at a leather dance. That still kills me.
I met a few JMG readers at the party, so "Hallo" to: Ken (the cute bearded cub from Milan), Jeffrey (the hilarious Brit), Alex from Moscow, Brantt from Berlin, Henri from Paris, and the big bear thruple from San Francisco. Below is a one-minute clip of the view from the balcony, but I'm not sure it gives you an idea of just how big the space was. I'd definitely visit Folsom Europe again, including the PiG Party, only next time I'll try to get out of Schoenburg (one of the gayborhoods) a bit more. Although we did get some sightseeing done, the bulk of our trip was kind of like visiting NYC for Pride and hardly leaving Christopher Street. Next time.
Labels: "celibacy", Berlin, circuit parties, dance music, Folsom Europe 2008, Germany, leather, nightlife