morsla | And that is all...

Dear gods, I haven't hurt this much in a looong time. It's a good hurt, though - every single muscle is politely letting me know that I will come apart at the seams, if I dare try to move in the next few hours. Nice of them to warn me, I guess..

It all started at about 7pm last night, when I walked in to the city to meet

mousebane for the Tea Party concert. The venue (Forum) was pretty cool - I haven't seen anything there before. Support (Everlast) were good. The guitarist and keyboard player weren't bad, but the drummer left them for dead... Some of those drum riffs are still stuck in my head, even after two hours of the "main" act.

Tea Party were great, as ever. Long, long versions of each song - a slowly building intro, a few verses, a quiet moment as Jeff spoke to the crowd. Then came the rest of the song, crashing down with a vengeance... only to roll into the next introduction. It was a great show, and a vastly better place to see them than the seats-right-up-to-the-stage Palace in St. Kilda.

Precious few gawths in the crowd, up the front of the show. So many country-road-wearing clones, though... I spent half the show standing behind three forty-somethings who kept going to buy more beer mid-song. Only one of them actually knew anything about the band, and he spoke up at the start of Sister Awake to tell the other two that "this is one of their big ones, I think," as the crowd went berserk. On the way out I bumped into some 40k players who haven't seen me in a collar before, and got some odd looks...

Then it was off to Abyss. Even with all three levels open, the place was crowded wall to wall - but the dancefloor grew (right back to the pool tables, at one stage :) ) and there was space enough to move later on. I danced until my legs fell off; picked them up off the floor, brushed them off, and danced again.

aeliel and I finally pried ourselves off the dancefloor at about 6am - not bad, as I'd arrived at 11:30.

Som many of the ghosts of club nights past, present and future put in an appearence. That eclectic subcultural mix of martial artists, roleplayers, belly dancers and computer geeks was never more evident than it was last night ;) The group from wushu (who appear to now be friday-night regulars) were doing Ba Gua next to the stage; most of MURP seemed to be in attendance; many a black and sequined bellydancing outfit was being put through its paces on the floor.

I briefly said hello to a bunch of people that I've seen around at clubs, 2nd Floor (hi

ephant) or LJ (didn't really get to talk to

one_mirror beyond "hi!" but I'm sure we'll catch up in future). Had a few people mention that they kept on seeing me at Abyss, and wondered where I'd go now... I don't know, but I'll find somewhere. Tangled my glowstick-armed braids in three people's hair (one at a time, thankfully). Grinned at all the people I was too shy to introduce myself to - guess I'll have to speak to them some other night.

Sure, three people decided to butt out their cigarettes on my arms while I was dancing; the air was so hot and dense that it was hard to breathe up on the stage, and the crowd could easily have filled three venues with people to spare - but if I had the chance, I'd do it all again.

Who cares whether it was really a "final" night? Who cares how many people were too "over" the scene to come out? It was a bloody good night, and that's all that matters to me...

and this goodbye
faced with hope and countenance
souls slip away
to bask in glowing radiance

leading me down...