Today's post comes from the blog of David Starfire -
I was very excited to receive a message from a production company about an extraordinary DJ gig in the Mojave Desert for the Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two (SS2) unveiling at the Mojave Air and Spaceport. For those of you that don’t know about Virgin Galactic, it’s a division of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group (like Virgin Airlines) and is dedicated to be the world’s first commercial space travel service. Yes you can travel to space for a mere $200,000, in a couple of years after test runs and the actual ship was there at the event for everyone to see for the first time.
The gig seemed almost too good to be true and had to keep some secrecy about it because of security reasons with V.I.P.s including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Richardson and various elite from around the world including and 300 people that have paid $20,000 down payment on their future space flight. The DJ gig was from 8pm-12am and had to be prepared to play for any type of crowd and ultimately had to create a cool vibe. I took lots of time to prepare a special set of taking the guests on a musical ride of a lifetime, as if I was creating a DJ set for a space flight to the moon. I knew that that I was in good company when I heard that the #4 DJ’s in the world Above & Beyond were spinning before me, which meant I had step it up. The set up of the party was something like 2001 space oddity meets burning man meets the W hotel bar. In the party area were 2 giant plastic inflatable dome structures, an outside section that had an ice bar hosted by Absolut and the Swedish Ice Hotel bar with a woman making ice sculptures. There was a clear plastic tent for press where Richard Branson talked about his SpaceShip Two (also named VSS Enterprise) and his company as well as the people that helped him to create it. After the press conference the ship rolled out on the tarmac and came through the fog and snow like a ufo approaching. The celebrity crowd surrounds the ship to get a glimpse of their future ride to space. Soon afterward the party kicked off with Above & Beyond rocking the decks with some nice house music. The VIP crowd seemed to be in their late 30’s-40’s and all had cocktails in hand and were feeling very special indeed. The rain and snow had stopped, but the wind was picking up and they decided to close one of the domes down and move everyone into one dome. The domes were rated at 40 miles per hour, but was picking up fast and was about 30 degrees and getting colder. The party crowd seemed content and cozy with their Puma Virgin Galactic jackets that were handed out to them. It kinda looked like everyone were in uniforms and you couldn’t tell the production crew from the jet set. Above & Beyond had finished their set and I started to spin and started off with the song “Sitarfire” from my upcoming album Bollyhood Bass (Six Degrees records) that will be out January 12th. I was on for a bit when all of a sudden I hear, “Attention, there’s a tremendous storm approaching and everyone must evacuate immediately!” and there went the rest of my DJ set. I started grabbing my gear and was placing it out of the dome when a large man came up to me and said, “You gotta get outta here, this domes gonna go any second!”. I ran out to the car and had experienced wind that I hadn’t experienced since I was in a tornado in Oklahoma, or when I was in a hurricane in Puerto Rico (really!). I was hoping the winds died down but just kept picking up to 70 mph and the party was definitely over. Went to my hotel room and the power was out, so drove back to Los Angeles and was an experience that I will never forget.
great news article and pics here
www.virgingalactic.com
www.davidstarfire.com
www.sixdegreesrecords.com -Read the full Post-
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