Saturdays in the Hamptons, during the winter, are pretty boring. You can either go to a friend’s house, the movies, or if you’re old enough, to the bars. Me and my friends usually take the train into the city on the weekends and go to clubs. The club we went to on this particular weekend was Webster Hall. We picked this weekend to go to Webster because Zomboy, an uprising EDM DJ from England, was playing there and he was supposed to be insane!
Webster is one of my favorite venues to go to in Manhattan. The atmosphere of it, the drama, the long line outside, which I get to cut because I bought advance tickets, and the “costumes” people wear. Webster is also my favorite venue because it has three floors. The main floor usually has a local DJ and he plays rap, hip-hop, and towards the end, some R&B. The basement, or what me and my friends call it, the “BASSment,” because the bass is so loud that they give you ear plugs as you walk down. And last but not least, there’s the top floor, which is where the famous DJs come and play.
The venue definitely affects the music because the music varies depending on what floor you are on. On the Bassment floor, everyone is rocking back and forth to the Dubstep music. Dubstep is usually loud and uses a lot of bass and drops. And depending on the DJ, a few moshpits occur there. On the Main floor, the vibes are more relaxing, more calm, due to the music being played. You would go there if you are talking to a girl and just want to dance with them and have fun. The Top floor is a mix of both of these. If you are an experienced rager, you are in the front of the stage. If it’s your first time, you are usually more towards the middle where it’s less crowded and people won’t bump into you.
The audience at Webster vary from die-hard fans with T-shirts of the DJ and knowing every lyric, to someone who’s just there for the first time. The ages go from 18 to 30 year olds, and it’s funny because you have to be 19 and up to get in. A lot of people wear bracelets and masks and crazy outfits. I remember I saw someone wearing a morph suit, and it was so hot I didn’t know how he was alive. For Webster, you could wear anything and it would be appropriate. I’ve seen girls go in there in bikinis, which is crazy. I was with my two friends, Parker and Daniela, and then Daniela’s friend, Sarah. The girls were wearing leggings and colorful shirts, while Parker and I were wearing button down shirts and jeans. Usually, we would wear shorts and shirts that stand out, but since it was Daniela’s birthday, we had to dress nicely.
On the Top floor is where we spent most of our time, mainly because the girls were too scared to go to the Bassment due to the moshpits. It was an hour or so after we got there that Zomboy came out. He mumbled a couple of words into a mic and the crowd went bananas, jumping up and down, and pushing people left to right as in they were pushing each other to see if you were awake or not. Everyone was just having a blast. About 30 minutes into Zomboy, the fire dancers came out. They come out every Saturday night during the main DJs performance and twirl sticks of fire and do crazy tricks, and in a way, go along perfectly with the rhythm of the music, as if it was choreographed but you know it’s not. They do this for about ten minutes, and there’s always firemen or someone with a fire extinguisher there just in case.
I remember the girls said they wanted to go to the bathroom, and so Parker and I made our way to the front. There was a dance circle going on and we joined. I’m a bad dancer, but no one there judges you. They actually encourage you to dance and they’re all friendly. After I fell while trying to do a spin, I knew I was done with the dance circle. We made it to the front of the stage and Zomboy was literally three feet in front of me. He was vibing with the crowd, moving his hand back and forth, and when he dropped his new single, he jumped into the sea of people! My jaw dropped when he flew over me and I was impressed that the people caught him, but it didn’t last that long because security started pushing people to get to him after he fell.
Zomboy used many percussion instruments in his set. They were pre-recorded, but you could make out the sound of the drums when his music got into a steady beat, almost as if the drums were keeping count, or used to change the meter. His music has a build to it, where the pitch of the music is low and then elevates to high and suddenly it drops and the dynamics go crazy. At one point during his set, he played the song “In The End” by Linkin Park, but he edited it in a way that made sense to how he was playing the rest of his set. It wasn’t slow, it was fast-paced and it was a totally different feel from the original song. Most of his songs were fast-paced, if not all of them, because if he were to play a slow song, I feel he would get booed out of the stage, and would probably never play there again. I feel like there was a lot of improvisation going on while he played because it looked like he was getting a workout behind the DJ booth, constantly moving his hands to switch on and off different songs and sounds. The most impressive thing that happened that night was when he picked up the mic and said this was his new single, and when the beat dropped, he jumped into the crowd and crowd surfed for a good 2 minutes!
It was around 3 a.m., and Zomboy was done with his set, and I was exhausted! I was kind of upset when the girls wanted to leave, but it was Daniela’s birthday so we left. Besides that, I had an extremely awesome time, Zomboy exceeded my expectations and I had a blast from the moment I stepped foot into Webster to when I got out. I can’t wait to go back and see what crazy experience I come back with from Webster Hall.
-Jaime Rincon
