Winter Party
Feb 25 - Mar 2, 2009

We have been to the mountaintop. We have flown to the peak of the circuit heap. We have been transported – across time and space, across the firmament. We have partied in a space station floating through the galaxy – and never wanted to come home.

This is how it went. Fasten your seat belts – but not for a bumpy ride.  Not with hottie flight attendants in shiny blue leatherette. And with such care and attention to your every comfort. Those little details that make Main Event unlike any other circuit party the world over. Just like flying first class – where they heat up your nuts.

Montreal cabbies, for example. They’re so polite. It’s Sunday night and we’re traveling in a van with four Black and Blue newbies. And two of them not even twenty-one. YIKES! Are they ready? Are we? There’s the Stade Olympique tower hovering in the distance—

That long walk in through the blue, dimly lit tunnels. All those volunteers, so cheerful as they relieve you of your coat and then hand you – a tiny plastic baggie in which to place your coat check stub – so as to prevent it from disintegrating into a sweaty mass by night’s end.  How thoughtful is that? (And who doesn’t need another tiny plastic baggie?) And then another volunteer handing you another little baggie – filled with condom and jelly – complete with detailed graphic instructional. THEY THINK OF EVERYTHING! And attendants with scissors waiting to snip off that bothersome excess bit of wristband – because, after all, we’re queens, princes, and princesses – and don’t we prefer things just so?

And already we’re running into everyone we’re supposed to meet – even though you’ve already imagined you’ll probably never find them in a galaxy of ten thousand people.  Which is why all those straight people carry helium balloons of teddy bears and clowns and happy faces – floating above their section of the dance floor – to keep them oriented and help them find their way back. But then again, what’s wrong with a little disorientation? 

So we glide into the main hall, a party of fifteen – found boyz, not yet lost boyz – which merits a photo op right there. Before the personal flights begin and we float out into space. And you can see it in the photos, that sense of anticipation. We can hear the music just in front of us – it’s Charles Poulin who has the opening set. Alumnus of Parking, Sky, and Unity, Poulin is one of two local pilots for the night’s journey. And so we move in closer – to the edge of the mezzanine – where down below on the center field of the Stade Olympique, there it is, the Black and Blue International Skyport. 

It’s a good thing we studied the blueprints. For the first time in memory, BBCM included a detailed floor plan of Main Event in its official brochure – not unlike those airport plans you find in the seat pocket in front of you, alongside the vomit bag.  And yet—  It’s still so overwhelming. There’s a JetSet Lounge nearby, playing the flick Airplane! – and the Belvedere Lounge, alongside the Massage Room, and white scrims with directions, pointing to Arrivals and Departures – and that’s just on the mezzanine level. 

Down there— It’s TOO MUCH! Already the landing strip is packed with people dancing between the two rows of light towers, each one of which seems to have about thirty spotlights which revolve and rotate in perfect symmetry – except when they don’t, when they’re whirling white shafts of light. And at the end of the landing strip, past the pilots and ground crew, there’s a PLANE! A supersonic jet sitting atop a stage, its Concorde-like nose poking its way into the crowd. It’s HUGE!  What they’d do, fly it in through the roof?  How did it get here?  How did we get here?  Where are we now? 

It’s almost one-thirty, the first show about to go off. We’ve got to make our way through the crowd to the lip of the stage. We’ve got to get photos. “Take Off With Us,” that’s what the first number’s called. Okay, not a problem. The flight controller’s voice booms around the stadium: Welcome to MAIN EVENT.  Please join me in welcoming… And we’re off and flying. “Good Vibrations (It’s Such a Sweet Sensation)”  Oh, but it is.  The BBCM dancers – about thirty of them, in black and blue patent-leatherette. Werking. They’re dancing their asses off. “Music is Freedom.” No question about it. And the crowd is in the house.  The children have arrived. And you should see the looks on the faces of those four newbies. Oh, priceless. Oh, joy. Oh, ecstasy… 

One of the nineteen-year-old newbies came to Montreal for the first time in November 2005, one month after last year’s Black and Blue – and everywhere he went, people kept telling him about Black and Blue, and so he made plans and shook his moneymaker, and made his way back to town for this year’s Black and Blue, with his best friend, and they went to Parking on Friday, and the best friend hooked up with our two newbies, and wasn’t it convenient that they’re all staying at the Sheraton – uh, huh, for real – and now the four of them are best friends with benefits, and you haven’t seen a happier quartet. A litter of puppies. We leave them to play.

We head to the mezzanine for those aerial views. And now it’s Antoine Clamaran from Paris at the controls, and there’s another show, with more BBCM dancers, in black undies now, and a female chanteuse with such energy, she’s leaping as she sings “Release Yourself.” Okay, we’ll tell the puppies.

We wander the floor, through the straight people section. The kind of crowd where you say, “I love the straight people” – and mean it. Why aren’t they all like this? Why aren’t they all so colorful and free and happy and fashionable and creative? So loving. These straights must be from another planet too.

Then suddenly it’s four a.m. Four a.m. already? How can that be?  Three hours passing in an instant. Time expanding and collapsing into – only now. That’s all there is at Main Event: everything happening in the moment. There’s another show, this one called “Nightlife,” with the Radical Queens, aka Sheena, Jae Aviance and a blonde bombshell named Vileda – and these grrrls come out with such ferocity, singing “Ain’t No Other Man” – and there ain’t no question these grrrls own this party. They’re a testament to what it takes to walk this planet with courage and conviction and your right to be.

There’s no question this party is in full orbit now. And fresh from their recent successes at the past two Main Events, it’s Chus & Ceballos back for a third year in a row. They told us they love this party for “that feeling of celebration that you can live inside this annual party [which] is unique [and] only possible in our favourite city to play: Montreal.”  LOVE THAT!

And this is the part of Main Event when you’re bobbing through the crowd, making your way, and you’re thinking about how it is that sometimes we can be lost boyz, wounded and hurt, and so often vulnerable, you can see it in our eyes at times – and then at last we’re together again, as a family, in our kingdom, where we come together. And to move through this crowd is to feel the love in the gentle touches and reassuring squeezes – on the shoulder, on the ass, or wherever…  No one’s in a hurry because we’re all where we want to be, in the very pulse of our being. 

And to see so many friends, and so many friendly people, and who wouldn’t want to be friends – with him, and him, and her?  Photo, please.  And how they pose for the camera.  This crowd knows their best angles.  We see old friends and new ones: Adam, George, Doug, John, Josh, Peter, Tim, Rich, Jason, Jay, Patrick, Alex, Marcel, JC, Kat.  And Moody with his camera.  And Kevin Aviance in a cuddly creation made just for tonight which makes him look like a lean and loving Tiggerbear - and he SMILES BIG for the camera. And Grandma with her magic wand – she’s a favorite of the four puppies. It’s not a messy crowd. The only time we see something unsavory is someone being thrust headfirst by his boyfriend into a large orange garbage can. We’re such a polite bunch. Even when hurling, we use the waste receptacles. 

And meanwhile, that music— It’s Chus & Ceballos taking us on this journey with those chimes and guitars and that haunting melody with a backbeat that keeps us moving even as our souls float off.  Something so beautiful and slightly elegiac. The crowd moving like a molecular structure of dancing atoms. Constantly in movement, bouncing lightly off each other. People caring for each other, massaging shoulders and spines.

The final show goes off at 6:45 a.m. The tribute show, to commemorate the losses from twenty-five years of AIDS. After all, it’s why we’re here. To fight the spread of AIDS. To raise monies to fund AIDS organizations and gay and lesbian community action. And so when Jae Aviance is joined by the BBCM dancers in a mash-up of “I Feel Love,” this ain’t no Donna Summer but a whole new way of remembering, and hoping for a time when… Stems of white gladioli pass from the hands of the BBCM dancers and into the crowd. White flowers and white lights for all those who danced before us.  

And of course, what’s Black and Blue without a little drama? It’s after seven a.m. and we’re in VIP with our cameras and media passes – when security taps us on the shoulder – whereupon we’re escorted through the vast recesses of the stadium, paraded through the crowd – and it could be embarrassing, except we decide to walk like we’re being led to an impromptu press conference with Mariah Carey which lessens any potential humiliation. And do you think anyone could have mentioned to us that even with a media pass, cameras are prohibited after three a.m.? But never mind – we got an extra four hours worth of photos. And so once our cameras are stowed in the media room, we’re making our second entrance into the party. Once again with that long walk through the blue-lit tunnels, past the departures and arrivals lounges, and–

The puppies are still playing. Not once have they been off their feet.  Youth. And of course the music. This music we’ve been hearing all night long. It’s what Main Event is known for – music you don’t hear elsewhere, not in this combination. Even “SexyBack” which plays during a couple of the shows and again later, even that song is not how you hear it anywhere else. 

And now Mark Anthony is the pilot, bringing us home for the closing set. His favorite part of the evening to play because, as he told us, “it’s where I get to express myself the most musically.” This is his eleventh Main Event – and he knows how to work us. He takes us further out beyond the space station. He mixes in Blondie’s “Call Me.” He makes us move without thought, to the place where body takes control. There’s no question that Mark Anthony is the man most often associated with Main Event, and the newbie pups are converts – they can’t stop dancing. They don’t want to leave when we’re ready – which is as it should be. We leave them to play on.