This Saturday X and I went to Happy Nation, a new club that's opened at Marie Laveau. We met up with Tomas and his girlfriend Elisabeth - whom I'd never met before, and was very nice - and then Annekaisa popped up with her friends Shirley and...somebody else whose name I cannot remember. We had a great time at Folkoperan where we sat drinking wine, talking and catching up; of course I love my friends, and letting them intertwine is even lovelier.

We then made a run for Happy Nation, which turned out to be a good idea. The bar at Marie Laveau was quite swamped even though we entered a tad after 22:00, but we stood around, talked and...then Anders and Ida turned up, yeay! We had a nice time as people started amassing, and then made the decision to get downstairs.

Happy Nation was quite empty when we entered, which was fine by me as not much time had passed. The DJ was playing music that sounded like something outta the halls of Arcade while we had more wine and started moving. One of the hosts went around passing out whistles and of course we all had to have one! By the way, I'd forgotten my ear-plugs - I'm old, I know! - but fawk that, the music went too good, and we had too much fun to care. Laughing gas was applied through balloons and people kept pouring in. The halls were decked with balloons, pennants saying "HAPPY NEW MILLENNIUM!" and stuff like that, and we danced all the way through the night. The band Kitty On The Catwalk played live, and who can't love a band with a track like "Pro Ana Party Slamma'"? I've never been a fan of happy hardcore, but the setting, the people, the atmosphere and extreme amounts of confetti that went everywhere was just too much - you had to love it.

The gig - which merely and beautifully consisted of three people dancing, posing and at times singing to happy hardcore and gabber loudly slamming the crowd - was over, and the DJ's started playing even harder music, tossing gabber into the mix. I couldn't stand still, had to dance. We blew our whistles, danced like mad and had trouble breathing through all the confetti: it was totally worth it.

To all you out there arranging parties - take notes and make a fucking effort like these guys. The crowd will love you for it. Those saying the ticket price was too high need to shut the hell up and get real.

Thanks to X's excellent ninjastyle we left the place with our jackets a lot earlier than if I had been trying to get hold of them. We were the last ones to leave out of our gang, all danced-out. I feel like I've been working out. I'm already looking forward to the next time! This club is what I've been missing ever since I went to my last rave...which was ages ago. This is too much fun to diss.

For more visual imagery from the event, we snapped a whole lot of pictures that are available here.

edit: here's a little video from the place, all chopped up, black as the night but still, it's worth a gander, I say!