Show: Looptopia with Bobby Conn, The Machinist, Paul Johnson, Redmoon Theatre and many more
Cost: FREE!
Drinks: For sale with cute names in a few locations, but mostly snuck in from home
Things I missed to be there: Lupe Fiasco down the street at Manifest; Belligerent Outburst, Eske, Sangre de Abajo, Sin Orden, and Tras de Nada at 4737 S. Western
Reason for going: It sounded like the old MCA Solstice Parties, which were the best things ever
Looptopia proved one thing, that the city may or may not have caught onto in the aftermath: give the people something to do and provide no more than a minor, non-interfering police presence and the city of Chicago can pull off a party. From what I saw of Looptopia, the most successful event was the MF Chicago dance party on the loading dock of the former Carson Pirie Scott. It was the type of event that looked like crap from a spectator's vantage point, but was a great time once you got into it (like any show at The Metro seen from outside the vantage point of a mosh pit). The acoustics were terrible and the projections were kind of haphazardly thrown onto the walls, but once you pushed yourself into the gind, it didn't feel like downtown, it felt like a party. People crowd surfed, personal spsce was breached, drinks were spilled left and right and soon enough all you could see were random flashes of light and flesh.
Laws were broken here and there. Hell, my friends and I probably broke some with my coffee cup full of Sparks, and my girlfriend's bottle of Diet Coke and Jack, but no fights broke out. Nobody got hurt or overdosed. The walls didn't get tagged to high hell, and the chillout room, surreal in the open air of the parking lot, remained plush and intact. Then it ended.
I figured that the city was worried about shit getting out of hand with an all night dance party, or maybe they were just worried that if it didn't get out of hand, it would set precedent for other parties, until we had the same kind of night life New York gets to brag about. Whatever the case, it didn't happen. Most of the big live acts were over at midnight, leaving people confused, full of adrenaline, promised an all night art party with no idea where to go. Rumors bounced back and forth: this hotel, that rooftop, Macy's. Crowds of weirdos mixed with the dapper promgoers exiting the Palmer hotel.
Eventually, as is usually thecase, things got out of hand. I got word of some friends over at Milennium Park. Someone instigated a chant of "Chi-Ca-GO! Chi-Ca-GO!" and as that started to die, someone replaced it with "Fuck New York" and people started to get busy, trying to rockthe Cloudgate sculpture (affectionately referred to as The Bean) until the cops showed up and things became frenzied.
A few blocks away, we were noticing an increased police presence as well, a Segway contingent, that we taunted by singing the guitarline from Europe's "The Final Countdown" (a reference to the Segway-riding Job on the cancelled TV show Arrested Development). Daley Plaza, which had previously been packed for mediocre concerts by Bobby Conn and The Ponys, was filled with theater nerds making their own fun playing games like "Big Booty" and bike punks who weren't sure where to go, once Redmoon was done breaking down their contraptions.
We got bored and we left. Other people got arrested, or tried to force the fun. If everything had started later, and done a better job spreading out, nobody would have notived how sparce the events were after midnight and it would have been a great Friday night.As it was, it was just another Chicago event, both over-and-under hyped, both over-and-under done, full of good intentions and a couple of genuinely sublime moments.
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