“We’re doing it for a good cause, but we might say fuck it and turn all the way up on a Wednesday!”
-Grandtheft
The best nights are the spontaneous ones. Sure, it may throw you off the following morning, especially if you have to work since it’s only the middle of the week. However, at times it can be for a good cause, along with some of the best memories.
Grandtheft and Embrace had a massive turn-out at The Velvet Underground for their event, Relief – which was only announced a day in advance, and with very little promotion compared to other events going on in the city. Nonetheless, the venue was packed well before midnight, and there were really no set times – just upwards of 10 different artists, from Strangerman to Pusher to JayemKayem to Skratch Bastid to Keys N Krates‘ turntablist Jr Flo to Hunter Siegel to Shaun Frank to Grandtheft himself, between 4 CDJs and 2 turntables – spinning one after the other (sometimes together) for 4 straight hours as one crazy back-to-back-to-back-to-back, with free reign over what was played. There were also a few appearances by Delaney Jane, who was on the mic singing her collaborative songs with Grandtheft and Shaun. Overall, the party vibe very much resembled that of Hunter Siegel’s No Neon series.
From Excision‘s headbangers to No Neon fam, it was a “come one, come all” type of event; this was most prevalent in the way each person had their own style(s) of dancing, especially when their familiar jam came on. Regardless of which scene each person generally comes from, the entire room was a unanimous uproar from start to finish.
The set starts off with some funky disco samples, to help groove/warm up the crowd as people were trickling in to the venue at a moderately fast pace. As the first hour progressed, the vibes already started getting much harder. We were bestowed with trap, hip-hop, future house and bass house alike, as well as classics like Daft Punk’s ‘Around the World‘. Whatever it was, it was always a song to ensure the energy was kept high until the very end. There was even a solid segment of dubstep, which caused the room to go absolutely bonkers for a solid 10-15 minutes.
At intermittent moments, Delaney would cause a break in the madness to spread some inspirational words to the crowd, which further lifted everyone’s spirits. At one point, she even admitted to having never crowdsurfed, and the crowd fully supported her and helped her float around the room.
There were some repeat tracks, as is to be expected in such an occurrence – A$AP Ferg & Future‘s ‘I’m on a New Level‘ played at least 3 times; Travis Scott‘s ‘Antidote‘ dropped a couple of times as well. More than once, I hollered out “BAYBEEEEEEEEEH” in unison with Ferg’s ‘Work REMIX’.
After the b2b concluded, a few artists and Delaney turned to the mic and gave praise to those who turned out, and took a moment to talk about the devastation left behind by Hurricane Maria, not too long ago. All the proceeds from that night went to Global Giving and International Relief Teams, to give aid to Puerto Rico.
The event left us all energized afterwards, which felt sort of weird, yet rejuvenating for a mid-week evening. Nonetheless, knowing that proceeds were going towards helping Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, we felt like it was very justified, helping out fellow human beings. If this were to happen again, or even become a series based on good intentions, I’m sure that the cityfolk would most definitely be down to help show some support once more.
