Everyone shows up for a funeral

I will never understand DC’s industrial/Gothic nightclub scene. On a usual night out at one of DC’s three scene events the crowd size is medium to small, and occasionally nil. Indicating that the scene in DC is waning.

Chiaroscuro at the edge is a perfect example. A perfectly fun dance night that we’ve been going to about once a month for the last couple of years. There is hardly ever a large crowd there, with the exception of this past Saturday night.

Saturday was the final Chiaroscuro and my friends and I went there expecting the usual mediocre crowd to give this fun little night its send-off. That was not the case. The club was packed to the gills with people and it was jumping.

A fun night was had by all, one I would even go out on a limb to call an “old-school” good time. “Old-school” like the years of fun at former scene havens the Roxy and Trax. Which leaves me wondering, where the heck are all these people every other Saturday night and why do they only come out to support the end of a dance night that they otherwise seem to ignore?

Is it in the morbid Goth tendencies to let a night flounder in obscurity and then revel in its demise with one heck of a wake? Or is it that the scene veterans can only bring themselves to hire a sitter once a year and throw down? Being of the eternal youth mind-set I don’t get the phenomenon of the scene hibernating and only showing its colors once in a blue moon.

Saturday night was evidence to me that the scene in DC is still as large as ever, it’s just in a dormant state hiding in a crypt somewhere. Whatever dance night pops up to replace Chiaroscuro I hope the scene can bring themselves out to support it a little more frequently than just to celebrate its end.

Originally published on December 19, 2005.

Just this week, on June 18, 2010, we launched a new Industrial/Goth night at FUR Nightclub in DC. I was one of the DJs. The night is called 'Revolution' and marks the return of this scene to a large nightclub format. 'Chiaroscuro' at the Edge was the last big nightclub Industrial night. I can't believe it has been 5 years!