First of all, the basic facts. I agreed last month to do sound for a rave in a old train tunnel – some would quibble with the word ‘rave’, but I continue to use the word ‘rave’ to describe it and ‘raver’ to describe myself, just like I continue to use the word ‘hack’ to describe what I often do to computers and ‘hacker’ to describe myself – if you let people co-opt words and give them negative connotations, they’ll walk all over the english language. 😉 Or so I see it.
Anyway, so, train tunnel, party.. now, as some of you may know, my ex-SO of 5 years found someone else last week, and I was thoroughly freaked by it. I thought I was ready for it, but my body reacted forcefully and without bounderies. I was unable to sleep for days, and when I did sleep, I would only get like one hour. So I had averaged a hour of sleep a night for the last week, and was seriously freaking. But, I’d committed to do this party, people were counting on me.. and, I felt like it would be good for me, maybe break me of a cycle that was threatening to rip me apart..
So, Friday I loaded up the van and drove out there with Jesiah. The rest of the crew didn’t show up for many hours, which we spent carrying things in.. but eventually everyone made it and we got the system set up and I played some happy trance on it (and enjoyed it rather muchly) and they played some dark trance on it (and I enjoyed *that* rather muchly too, for the first hour at least..) and in general all was good.
We had discussed, prior to the event, and decided that a array of six 450s.. two at the very front, two 20′ back, and two 40′ back, would maintain a good stereo image throughout the tunnel. We had originally thought we would bring one 1801, but I ended up bringing two.. one probably would have been enough, though. The speaker configuration had the desired effect.. the sound stayed good throughout the whole dance floor, mostly.
I still think we should have kept the speakers closer togeather, because they were placed such that there was starting to be some blur by the time you got to the end of a array.. but, it still sounded good. The accoustics in the place are, well, incredible..
Anyway, back to my story.
Friday night, I drove home, got three hours of sleep and woke up feeling awful and one step away from freaking out totally again. Many things delayed my return to the space.. traffic problems, problems hooking up with Jesiah, and whatnot.. but get there I did, with all the important bits & peices.
A lot of the night was very transcendant and multilayered for me. I have a tendancy to wander towards spirituality when I’m suffering from sleep deprived insanity, and I have no doubt that i was way, way, way over my sleep budget.
I won’t try to explain a lot of that here.. I’ll make a private post about it, or maybe a friends-only if you all are genuinely curious.. but.. there were just many different layers to the whole experience.
Finally, the sun rose, the generator ran out of gas, and we retreated to the cars for a couple hours of sleep before strike.. Tory and Jamie had slept earlier in the night, so they tore down a bunch of the sound system while we were sleeping, but it still took many hours to get it back out of the tunnel.. my body was beyond sore and beyond exhausted. Everyone else went to eat afterwords and then to have a decompression party, but I went straight home, slept for a bit until Jessie & Co got here, unloaded the van.. and then slept for another, much longer bit. Which brings us up to now..
Am I okay now? I can’t really tell. I’m a bit sore.. (I’m starting to understand why people might get a full body massage.. ) .. I’ve had a couple of little moments-o-panic, but nothing unmanagable. I feel much saner and better balanced after sleeping. I’m *hungry*.. I think maybe I’ll make some spagetti..
I will say I am *never* driving home as tired as I was last night again. Not that I almost fell asleep.. luckily, I don’t do that.. but that I felt so far removed from the road and the drive that I feel I must have been somewhat unsafe.. and my reaction time was *awful*. 3/10ths of a second, I’d guess. I left like four car-lengths whenever I could to compensate, but..
I read somewhere that your chances of being in a accident go up 30% after a severe emotional stress. I don’t know if this recent event counts as ‘severe’ or not.. by my lights, it does.. but anyway, I can see why.
