Team Party Crash: Blackout Reunion Party At Tank
Saturday night s 2004 Blackout Reunion theme certainly had potential to be a good party. Finally, a chance for people to reunite over a warm beer, embrace a stranger and perhaps — with luck — partake in some 2004 Blackout Reunion sex. Yeah, we'll go anywhere there's the possibility of sex in a darkened room. Gawker special correspondent Kristen Duncan Williams and staff photographer Eliot Shepard revel in the darkness.
Walking into the party we were met by Public Enemy s "Don t Believe The Hype" (a sign?), a room full of people who quite possibly got dressed in the dark, and a number of glow sticks. I was bummed not to spot a single "I Survived The Blackout of 2003" T-shirt.
We decided to hit the candlelit bar where we were handed warm Budweiser in dented cans and offered free melting ice cream sandwiches. I asked the bartender whether warm beer was part of the Blackout theme. He glared back at me, "Actually - no. We ran out of ice."
I worked my way around the room, trying to get a sense of who was here, why they were here and what was their blackout story?
I was out of town. I hadn t moved to New York yet. No I don t have a story. I m from Paris. What blackout?
This was going nowhere fast. In the corner I spotted a pack of teenage kids, pounding beers and making butane flamethrowers with their empty cans. I approached them, positive they d share blackout tales involving looting and Molotov cocktails.
Right on cue, the twenty-something party organizers took to the flash-lit stage and proceed to subject the room to a non-blackout related comedy sketch about being in the 8th grade.
They were followed by a band ( Bad Teenage Moustache ) with perhaps one or four too many members who at one time were in highly thought of improv comedy outfits, including a Frank Black looking singer and someone who may have been recent abductee Elizabeth Smart on back-up vocals. If I didn t know better I would have guessed they were one of those spooky indie Christian rock bands at least until they did "Fuck the President".
Just for kicks we decided to play the Oh look! fake celebrity spotting game. After a sad list of party look-alikes including Joan Osbourne, Melissa Etheridge and that guy from Northern Exposure we decided to call it a night.
Overall the party was full of nice, sweet people but we missed the edge, the danger of reliving the blackout of 2003. Grabbing our umbrellas and plunging forth into the night we headed eagerly towards the bright lights of Times Square. And may I say, Times Square never looked so good.