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.