Cherry 8 Circuit Party

This May 2nd through the 4th, it was all about red jersey cotton, red flat-back crystals, and Russian Cyrillic stencils for the big Cherry 8 bash in Washington, DC. On Thursday night, I was feverishly gluing stones to my tastefully deconstructed (read: I can’t really sew) party frock, cursing the fact that every circuit party can’t be the Black Party—which matches my existing wardrobe perfectly. Kvetching aside, Cherry this year was quite a party, though perhaps not quite as all-out, throw-your-hands-in-the-air-and-forget-what-day-it-is fabulous as last year’s Cherry 7. The DJ talent roster was top-notch: the legendary Billy Carroll opened the festivities at the Friday night Welcome Party at Apex, with DC-boy DJ Blaine Soileau acting as wingman in the club’s lounge. (This year’s welcome was in fact superior to last’s—despite the noble efforts of DJ Joe Gauthreaux, partiers last year were forced to squint at each other in this gawdawful blazing light from behind the club’s bar area. Semi-florescent light is a huge no-no anywhere, but particularly at parties like these—who wants to count the pores on their hook-up’s nose?) The Friday after-hours at Cobalt was also a rousing success, with Boston-boy Richie Rich la Due manning the decks upstairs and plenty of room to circulate, chat, and cruise in the downstairs lounge area. Saturday brought the Main Event—and the debut of my deconstructed-post-Communist-Swarovski-crystalled garment-of-life. The big soiree this year was held at the brand-spankin’ new DC convention center, which enabled it to run into the wee hours of Sunday morning—unlike last year, when the governmental nature of the Old Post Office Pavillion forced the party to come to a screeching halt at the woefully-early hour of 2am. Yeeeah.) Unfortunately, convention centers—though large—aren’t the warmest, most attractive spaces, and walking into the Main Event this year was like walking through a deserted airport at 3am. It was dead silent until you were right on top of the party—though the looks my group got from the rent-a-cop security staff were priceless. The dance floor occupied a segment of the main convention space, partitioned off on two sides by huge black curtains hung from the ceiling. The remaining two sides were sort of left open, and the crowd—a thousand or so strong by the time we arrived—straggled out into the seating and bar areas, making the whole space kind of lose focus and seem oddly cold. The three huge, white fabric scrims stretched over massive, moveable lighting grids on the ceiling helped a great deal, though—as did light-master Ross Berger’s mad illuminating talents. At several points during the night, the scrims were lowered to within a few feet of our heads and speckled with lasers and light-pools, making the dance floor seem like the most fantastic backyard tent-party of all time. DJs Brett Henrichsen—who’s extremely cute, incidentally—and Tom “Superchumbo” Stephan did the musical honors, serving us everything from vintage Madonna remixes to current cuts like Vivian Green’s “Emotional Rollercoaster” to the one Missy Elliot (watta-tah-tah-tatta-tatta-tah-tah!). When the lights came up at 6am, my group was actually just fine with the fact that there was no official after-hours that night—we were pretty much wrecked.

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