A Look Inside Our Two-Day Bender at Boiler Room NYC

This had to be one of the largest, most intense, and high-energy Boiler Rooms in NYC to date.

Image Courtesy of Boiler Room

Spending our Saturday and Sunday under one roof with 8,000 people who share a similar love for hardcore techno, house, and electronic music sounds like our ideal weekend. At Boiler Room New York City, the smell of poppers, the sound of everlasting bass, and the feeling of involuntarily touching thousands of sweaty bodies perfectly fulfilled our sensations. Taking place at Avant Gardner in the Brooklyn Mirage, The Great Hall, and The Kings Hall, this had to be one of the largest, most intense, and high-energy Boiler Rooms in NYC to date.

On Saturday, the venue was full almost as soon as the doors opened. From 6 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., 1202 MAGAZINE spent the first day (and night) trying to scramble amongst the three rooms to see our favorite acts. The night began with Las Flaquitas, Byrell The Great, x3butterfly, Xaviersobased, Kilopatrah Jones, and Tony Humphries. Once 8 p.m. approached, the venue became a maze of bodies, making it nearly impossible to move. When Zack Fox took the stage on the tiny platform in the middle of the giant crowd, everything heated up both temperature and energy-wise.

Photography by Bryan Kwon

Toward the middle of the night, sets from MRD, OG MarlynMonROLLUP, and Eli Escobar kept everyone’s stamina up to gear them up for the last sets of the night. Rico Nasty had the crowd raging and girls fighting (in this case, if you’re going to fight, I guess Rico’s music would be perfect to do so), combining her punk rap with techno and house beats throughout her performance. Despite how hot it was, Yaeji kept thousands of people on their feet during her multi-genre set (we could probably thank drugs, alcohol, and adrenaline for a partial contribution to the ability to stay on your feet for that long). The night ended with all-consuming sets from Crystallmess, VTSS, Riobamba, TDJ, MCR-T, Akanbi, and our hometown Detroit favorites, HiTech.

Not much had changed on Sunday as we saw many of the same faces from Saturday with just as much energy as the night before. Maybe the drugs, alcohol, and adrenaline were still in people’s systems. Despite starting at 3 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. like on Saturday, the crowd acted as if we weren’t sleep-deprived. For the sake of our sleep, luckily, Sunday also ended at 11 p.m. What was bright and early for people who went to sleep when the sun came up, Zeemuffin, Jossy Mitsu, Equiss, and Ayesha kicked the day off. As the sun set, Avant Gardner was again packed to the brim. The Panjabi Hit Squad, Nooriyah, Swami Sound, Sicaria, and Ben UFO b2b Pearson Sound b2b Pangaea left us feeling overly exerted and wanting more…so we stayed for more.

Photography by Erik Lorch and Tania Hauyon

The ambiance was still electric and palpable at the end of the night. Amaarae, SHERELLE, Giggs, and Digital Mystikz left us with a lingering bittersweet feeling as we knew Boiler Room NYC was coming to an end. We can’t fail to mention the surprise set by the hometown hero Dylan Ali and the surprise performance by the it-girl herself, Aliyah’s Interlude. As everyone slowly left Avant Gardner, we could still hear a recurring bass in our ears behind the ringing sound — maybe that was our brain refusing to accept that we had to wait another year to experience what we had this past weekend.