We Are All Made of Stars

Raising the art of law-school exam procrastination to new heights, we went to New York City for 23 hours between two of my exams to see a secret Moby gig at the Bowery Ballroom. (The gig wasn't listed on the venue's website until after it happened). Being delayed by a massive ice storm, we got to the hotel late and they had given our room away... so they upgraded us to a (*coughing fit*) $700/night suite with a 300 sq. ft. flagstone balcony and views on the Empire State Building! I heart New York! We took photos of the minibar to record for posterity the $4 Snickers bars and $6 bags o' peanuts, but oddly the miniature sex-toy kit--the minibar had a miniature sex-toy kit! We felt like such provincial rubes for being amazed by that--was a relative bargain at just $20. "Body-wax adult candles," anyone?

Moby & band played for about 2 1/2 hours; then during the break Jonathan Ames, a friend of his (whom we saw the next day walking down Rivington with groceries), got onstage to share a hilarious story about his greatest childhood trauma, which involved publicly humping a tree. Post-story, Moby returned to DJ for another 2 or 2 1/2 hours, by which time those of us who have lives (e.g., work the next day or kids to take care of) had gone home, but there were still about a hundred of us dancing like maniacs with the Bowery Ballroom all to ourselves. The Moby boards are packed with further detail, including the key to the mystery of the Belgians in the front row, whom we saw the next day at Teany with their laptop, eating scones, speaking Flemish and clicking through the monumental quantity of photos they had taken: so many that they could make a movie of the gig just by rapidly displaying them in order. UPDATE: here is a link to a selection of those photos, taken by Antwerp's biggest Trekkie and Moby fan, Kris Russel! Speaking of pictures, no telephoto lens or other such device was involved in ours: that's just what it's like in a small venue (1929 art deco theater). With a small-to-medium crowd. But big prices ($8 beer).

And great things: nearly five hours of nonstop dancing. The astonishing voice of Laura Dawn (far right in this photo). Fun with musical instruments: they played the same song ("Porcelain") five times ("That was the psychedelic version, now we're going to do a country & western version. Now we're going to try a reggae version. Here's the jazz lounge version.") Bassist Daron Murphy performing a six-minute, slowed-down "lounge version" of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell." An excellent, note-perfect performance of "Break On Through (To The Other Side)," and as a tribute to New York, "Walk on the Wild Side." Moby's between-song patter, in French ("L'homme qui s'appelle George Bush est un grand, grand, grand idiot") or in Absurdish ("Thank you, Secaucus. We love to play Secaucus. For those of you who do any traveling, we'll be in Columbus, Ohio right after Christmas. We'll be playing at the Days Inn motor lodge, off exit 70, right behind the Hewlett-Packard plant. Love to see you there.") The band was playing for free, all proceeds to a music-therapy charity and Amend.org. And one last, but not least, great thing: being with a bunch of people who love the music, who love being there, and who all feel in sympathy and cahoots with everyone else--not a bar crowd but something closer to a big group of friends. A smiling blond girl wandered around looking for people she knew from Moby's online chatboards: "Are you a boardie? Hi! I'm Girl from Ipanema!" Two women from Barnard took pity on me for my short stature and deftly wove me into the crowd, closer to the stage, by means of a creative lie: "Excuse me, she's partially blind. Thanks. 'Scuse me--partially blind." The whole thing was such a great big heart-swelling bonding moment that I thought maybe we had at last moved into the Age of Aquarius.