AC Slater to Start the New Year

Even when it’s 3 degrees out, Detroit cranks up the AC. On New Years Eve, the Magic Stick hosted one heck of a 2018 welcoming party, featuring Sonya Alvarez, Golf Clap, and AC Slater. At 9pm, the wooks begin flooding through the doors of the club, dressed in their pashminas and their grunge tees, greeted by the intoxicating juggles of the young Sonya Alvarez. She has zoned into her own space of mind on stage, totally cool and comfortable. Accompanying her and her opening music is the early signs of an evolving electro concert: a women distributing glow bands, a smoke break on the deck, and a slow head bob. It starts with a slow bob from the crowd. Soon after the ring of new year, AC Slater meanders on stage as if he is not the main act when in fact he is, but rather another guest of the party. With the groups of VIPs on stage, he makes conversation with smiles and suave while Sonya closes out with her last track. Then, the AC steps in front of the booth.

So, it starts with the slow head bob when the beat of the music syncs with the beat of your heart. Then slowly, your entire system accelerates at the rate of the noise seeping from the speakers until the sound of imminent explosion has you on edge so much that you must contain the urge to break out in crazy motion…

and then,

the tempo rises more and more when

the bass drops.

I look around, and what was once just a dark empty room has become an illuminated oasis for music lovers. Everyone is engaged. Everyone is dancing. Every single person. Even at the doors and behind the bar, the bouncers and bartenders have the head bob. That’s the thing about this genre: everyone is there for the music. Maybe at a pop concert, people go to the venue for a social experience (not always the case, but from observation), but here, it’s about the bass. It charges the crowd with unmatched electricity. Amongst these people, anything goes. When Golf Clap comes on at 1 in the morning, he is another one of us, just plunges right into the break. He too intoxicated by the beat. At one point, I jumped on stage and danced next to AC Slater and Golf Clap’s booth without any insecurity of how I may look. There is no such thing as not fitting in because there is no mold for whom can attend or what you should wear or how you should dance. It’s about the bass.