¡Mayday!
and Vega spun classic hip hop (Skee-Lo, Jay-Z, Outkast, etc.) while the
assembled cross-section of downtown and Brickell types, both males and
females, sucked back soda-booze mixes between posing for pics. The
house momentarily came alive during a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song sing-along, before scratch kid DJ I-Dee, wearing a neon Gandhi T-shirt, quieted things down again with a 20-minute exercise in dance-rock deconstructionism.
had finally grown bored, sick of entertaining itself. So the rarely
seen master of ceremonies took the stage and swiped the mike, totally
ready to reclaim the party. But the DJ miscued, killing the rap muzak.
And that's all it took: a chant of "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" cutting
through the crowd while the MC waved his hands helplessly.
hesitation though, the lights went dead and ¡Mayday! streaked onto
Transit's small corner stage, like weird apocalyptic paratroopers in
black bodysuits and gas masks. Harsh white stage beams sliced through
total darkness, a pair of breakdancing hype-men battled shadows with
flashlights, and the band pounded through a five-minute, free-beat
instrumental intro. Anonymous bodies bumped me and I bumped them. Loose
groups left the bar, booths emptied, and the parking lot patio became
half-abandoned. Everyone flooded the warehouse-like interior, quickly
clotting into a single sweaty mass, dancing where we could and pogo-ing
where we couldn't.
returned and every member of ¡Mayday! had somehow finished a full
wardrobe change. With his Rick Rubin beard and bald head, piano man
Plex Luthor stood behind twin keyboards in a red tiger t-shirt. Three
other band members, stripped back to their street clothes, manned a
bongo rack, a second key deck, and a five-piece drum kit.
The crew's vocal duo -- BernBiz in red Wayfarers and Wreckonize in a
huge hoodie -- materialized out of the still-dark crowd, launching into
a breakneck burst of old faves that bled from "Let Go" into "On 2
Someth'n" into "The Future is Now." There was more sweat-soaked
dancing, pogo-ing, and body bumping.
At the edge of the stage, there were the camera guys and the bloggers.
Then, there were those who had turned inexplicably away from the band,
pointing their Elph/iPhone/Rebel at themselves or into nowhere, using
the camera flash as nothing more than a party strobe. But center stage,
there was Wrekonize, stopping for a second of silence before shouting:
"Who's ready for something new?"
The side-alley, band-and-press-only backstage area was empty, except
for a couple feasting on each other's faces. I interrupted their
vicious make-out session. They sneered. And I left.