6000 positive Facebook responses. 3500+ actual attendees.
Toilet paper streamers. Printer paper confetti. Glowsticks.
People dressed like penguins. Mooning. Flashing.
Crowd surfing. People jumping off balconies and scaling poles.
Loud DJ music. JMU fight song. Chanting.
Cameras. Cell phones. Video crews.
Screaming and yelling loud enough to make voices hoarse and ears ring.
Cops. Broken fire codes. Locked library doors. Confused librarians.
People pounding on plexiglass windows and doors.
Throbbing and undulating and bouncing and jumping and dancing crowds on 5 floors of brand new library.
Enough purple and gold to last a lifetime.
One EPIC James Madison University rave to claim for my last year at JMU. :)
The rumors started like wildfire. I first got the invite via Facebook, and it was almost infectious to see how fast the numbers were growing. Caught in the excitement, I sent the contact info for The Breeze to the creator of the page citing that it would make one of the juiciest front-page articles for the following semester in a long time, and he immediately contacted them to pass on the word. Soon, the posts were of “don’t delete the page yet! I’m still spreading the word!” quality, and “The cops know!! We’ll get arrested for disorderly conduct!” Most of these fears were quelled by more excited posts of “They can’t arrest all 4000+ of us! It just won’t happen!” The page was deleted around 8:30PM, a generic Facebook placeholder of “This event has been cancelled” in its wake, as if nothing had happened. The word continued to spread via the internet, via text, via twitter, via word of mouth, and the word was: meet at 9:30PM on the Festival Lawn, and we will storm the East Campus Library at 10 with an exam-stress-relieving rave to make UNC Chapel Hill cower in shame.
JMU was not disappointed.
My own idea was not unique—when I arrived with several of my close friends to stake out a spot in the library to leave our things while we partied hearty, there was no space to be found anywhere. Chelsea managed to find an empty one-person carrel and we shoved all our backpacks underneath and sat on the floor, “studying” and giggling while we messaged other friends who were amassing on the Lawn and others who were on their way. As we looked around, we found that the majority of the people in the library were whispering to friends, smiling, and making no attempts to mask their excitement either. A call came in from Banks—“Where are you?” and we migrated to the first floor to find that people were beginning to congregate sketchily in the lobby. The librarians, some informed and snickering and the others confused and worried, stood at the check-out desk, eyeballing the large crowd, visually measuring fire code violations and keeping a protective watch over the books that were displayed on lower bookshelves. One of them started as a student started to clear the books and their stands on the waist-level shelves, but when she realized they were stacking them neatly and respectfully out of the way, she stayed where she was.
Suddenly, Lauren panicked. “Guys, one of my friends on the Lawn says they’re trying to move it to Festival!” All of us jumped at her phone, saying that there was no way that could happen. “There’s already too many people here—at least 1000!” Another text came in—“Can you tell everyone to go to Festival?” Response—simply, “TOO MANY!” Too many was right; there were already people lining the second floor balconies and people pressing their faces and bodies against the study room windows that looked over the melée. We couldn’t tell them all.
Then it happened. The whole crowd erupted into cheers as a much larger group of people rushed from the Lawn to the library and streamed through the doors. Screaming, yelling, jumping, clapping. My ears were throbbing, and I had to stick my fingers in them as I pushed my own voice beyond its own capabilities and into supersonic. Rummy, Banks, Hilary, Kayla and Lauren, beside me, did the same, waving their glowsticks in the air. Crowds pushed in close, and people who had never met one another were greeting each other and laughing and high-fiving in the anticipation. The cops were beginning to get restless, and they finally blocked the doors, threatening the still-large crowd outside with mace and handcuffs. Frustrated, they began to beat their own rhythm, smashing their fists and open hands against the plexiglass windows of the library. The people inside cheered, and suddenly, a chant was taken up: “LET THEM IN! LET THEM IN! LET THEM IN! LET THEM IN!” Not forgotten and grateful for the support against the 5-0, the students outside cheered back and continued their asymmetric drumming on the windows even louder. The chant evolved: “J! M! U! J! M! U! J! M! U!” and then “KILL THE LIGHTS! KILL THE LIGHTS!” A small group in the center of the mosh decided that just then would be a fantastic time to start the fight song, and up it went!
From the looks of it, the outside crew had joined in, despite being locked out in the cold. Nothing could quell the Madison pride.
The crowds continued the hollering and yelling, but then things started to quiet, though marginally. I could actually hear my friends. “Picture time!” I yelled, and snapped the camera with a few people next to me.
BRRUMMP. The crowd erupted once again from a small lull, recognizing the sound system of a DJ who had set up on the 2nd floor and whose screeching microphone had echoed through the atrium. And thus the mayhem began when a remixed “Hide and Seek” and “Sandstorm” blasted through the speakers.
After the 30-minute craziness had ended, the DJ announced the last song, and the crowds dispersed, leaving nothing but the toilet paper streamers and wrinkled printer paper confetti behind. Within minutes, phone videos and pictures had been uploaded to the internet, and short-post sites and messaging boards were a-buzz. Within hours, the JMU library rave had been uploaded to The Breeze website, the local campus newspaper, and by the next day had even made national news at U.S. News and World Report, drawing several angry comments from JMU students & alumni noting that it was the first rave of its kind at JMU and that the school was in HarrisonBURG, not HarrisonVILLE, Virginia. It also set the tone for other schools, who posted on their own websites that they should follow suit with a rave of their own. Twitter posts blew up the i-net:
“Went to the ECL rave...or tried. Cops, fire department, ambulence, even cadets are there. But so are a lot of Jmu kids.” ~codeman463
“Makes me proud to see all the awesome pictures and videos of the #JMU ECL rave. Good job guys. GO JMU!” ~loldave
“flash rave dance party in the library. ECL anyone? http://tr.im/ksma (thanks carrier library for the link)” ~imjared
“By far a memorable night: crowd surfing in the ECL” ~cchelseafosterr
“#rave at JMU's East Campus Library! Youtube it the videos are pretty cool!” ~beamse
“@ryanobles Just heard about a similar flash mob dance rave at a JMU library tonight - students trying to relieve stress before finals #nbc12” ~tvblake
“JMU knows how to RAVE during finals week!” ~stephsousa
“wow JMU rave was intense and we didnt even get inside the doors bc of all the copsss!” ~DanieChelena
“JMU RAVE AT EAST CAMPUS LIBRARY” ~worldchat “Still can't believe what happened yesterday at the JMU East Campus Library. JMU RAVE AT EAST CAMPUS LIBRARY @SmithJenna @NinaBeaulieu @Jackiegreeves @Lastsurphivor. Making a video of the craziest school rave ever... in a library... JMU EAST CAMPUS LIBRARY = OUT OF CONTROL” ~GregHSnow
“Best jmu memory of senior year. Ecl rave. Amazing!” ~curyan88
“How does JMU relieve stress after finals week? A rave in the library, of course.” ~christinajoyner
“So there was a rave during finals week in the library at my old school. Oh JMU...” ~Simon_Goldberg
“Do I strike you as the type of person who would be at a rave in our school library? Just got word about the crowd surfing & cops. Oh JMU..” ~imCRoberts
“i wish there were raves in the library while i was at #JMU!” ~RTaninecz
“So this is how they study at JMU. A rave in the library? 4000 people!” ~BatteryHillLive
“HUGE rave in the library during finals week? i love jmu” ~smithjenna
“RT @KPageisgreat: RT @mdelizlp: I FREAKIN LOVE MY SCHOOL!!!!!!! JMU LIBRARY FLASH MOB RAVE” ~TiaBoo2010
“I love my alma mater -- JMU Library Flash Mob Rave” ~billblevins
And more and more video and photo footage of the event surfaces every few minutes, outranking the UNC event by thousands of hits. All one has to do is search Google for "JMU Rave" or "ECL Rave" or any combination, and the results are phenomenal.
All in all, despite the ringing in my ears and initial fear of being arrested, after I left the library with Hilary in the chilly night that felt amazing after the hot mess of the ECL atrium I was proud to say that I could rave...in a library...on my alma mater's campus during my fifth and final year at the university. Not to mention that it was my first rave ever, period.
Eat it, UNC. And try to beat it. J
I didn't know you had a blog! And I hadn't heard about that at JMU- that's crazy! Thanks for your comment on our blog...you have to try the mulled cider :) hehe...i'm glad it looked yummy to you too
ReplyDeleteIt gets very little attention, but I try every once in a while :) And the mulled cider is next on my list!
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