Sometimes there are just too damn many people at a party. It seems the entire Central District has shown up for Peter's birthday, which is equal parts exhilarating and nerve-racking. The backyard fills to capacity, becoming a veritable human pen, everyone shoulder-to-shoulder, milling and blowing smoke. As there is only one bathroom in the house, which is also packed to the brim, the shrubberies along the perimeter become public toilets. Everywhere I look someone is going to the bathroom. Peter beseeches the crowd: "My neighbors are really nice! Don't pee in their yard! Pee in mine!" Occasionally a drunkard jumps into one of the bushes.

This has been a day of unseasonable warmth—it makes the basement sticky and sweaty while bands are playing. Several people are hardly wearing any clothes at all. Moshing breaks out for Cut Loose: Peter chugs a beer as he is carried across the top of the crowd. Bow + Arrow evoke a wall of fist pumping, though their set unfortunately ends with a fan getting her face bashed with a guitar. The dance party is so wild for LP+BB I only last about three minutes in the thick of it. The band can hardly get through songs because their keyboards keep getting knocked over; the PA narrowly avoids several disasters. Exiting the crowded basement, I am met by an even larger crowd on the lawn, still smoking and peeing everywhere. Peter tells me they're going to have "a dance party all night, then a barbecue at dawn!" This place is a fever dream. I flee.

Want to use The Stranger as a human shield when you cop a squat in the corner of your backyard party? E-mail the date, place, time, and party details to partycrasher@thestranger.com.