I’m on a Boat!

Before the festival, there were the parties. And while there are great party towns, few can match Detroit’s. So when the official Paxahau “I’m on the Boat” party, held Sunday night, was announced shortly before the festival, it quickly became the “buzz” afterparty of the weekend.

For starters, it had the hook, with its name taken from the infamous “I’m on a Boat” SNL skit. And it had the boat. The Princess, a 1500 capacity, four level, 70-year old ship that shuttled the locals, back when they were tykes, to a now demolished amusement park up river.

Even better, in its decades trawling up and down the river, it had never been the site of an afterparty, techno or otherwise. The three decks that were used for music [the fourth being a small VIP room] were long, narrow, and musty, a bit like the bar in The Shining. This being Detroit, it almost goes without saying that the rooms were dark, just as Detroit likes it, making it easy to lose your friends and your mind in the anonymity of the crowded floor and the incessant beats. so that you could lose your friends and your mind in the anonymity of the crowded floor and the sound of the music.

It had the location, since the boat docked at the festival’s gate; and it had the DJs. Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen were techno’s second generation stars, following in the footsteps of Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May. And Luciano and Loco Dice have been selling out big clubs all across the country with their mad, minimal tag team sets.

Craig had every reason to be in a good mood. Not only was it his birthday; one of it “presents” was the announcement this week that he would be the creative director of Movement 2010. Since he was the creative force behind the original festival and had been fired on the second, it was a dish served sweet.

And Pullen, who also turned 40, was in a celebratory mood if just to be at home: He had come straight from the airport, having flown in from Amsterdam at the end of a grueling two-week tour, just to make the occasion.

While Luciano and Loco Dice weren’t birthday boys, it didn’t hold them back either, following their three hour main stage festival headlining stint with a harder, driving set that kept the stairs between the two busy.

In true Detroit fashion, the only bump on the road came from things actually going off as planned. Used to boat parties in Miami and Los Angeles, which never start on time, many people assumed the announced 1:30 departure time was optimistic by at least an hour and planned to beat the lines by showing up late, when the boat was “really” going to leave.

But since Canada is on the other side of the river and the boat ‘s actions are closely monitored by international law, in another first, the boat actually pulled out very close to 1:30, leaving any number of people, tickets in hand, stranded until the boat pulled back in at 3:30. An afterhours that actually started on time. Who would have thought…?

The following Impression of the Boat Party by Ryan Patrick Hooper

Comedic phrases come and go, but on Sunday night, “I’m on a boat!” was here to say. With the help of Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, Loco Dice vs. Luciano and more combined magical DJ forces to smother three levels of the Detroit Princess (a massive steamboat that cruises up and down the Detroit River with a steady, romantic pace) for a night of electronic debauchery with very little drinking involved … seriously. We checked out the VIP, we savagely swung our makeshift machetes in this super weird tropical jungle and we struggled with the idea of so many girls tightly compacted in one area for hours at a time … but the bar honestly closed ten minutes before 2 a.m., and the boat didn’t return until after 3 a.m. Many patrons reported symptoms like contracting the early come-on of hangovers and worse, but who could blame them?

Either way, the captain was an especially nice guy — Captain Scott Wake which, you know, is obviously a great name for a captain — and let us hang out in his sweet perch atop the five-story Detroit Princess. He refused to do a shot of whiskey (so what? we sneak around with flasks and stuff and offer them to people who drive massive, people-packed boats), which was probably a really solid call on Captain Wake’s part in the end. Cheers to you, good sir!

Words by Neil Feineman, Additional words by Ryan Patrick Hooper, Photos by Dustin Downing, Additional Photos by Joe Gall

Photo Gallery by Dustin Downing