Gonna Be 5 Tonight

The parking lot to LBX is blocked by an incomprehensible scatterplot of orange construction cones. Somewhere down McDowell, there will be tangible roadwork, trenches cut into asphalt, covered by metal plates clanking under tires, burning hot even now at 10pm on a Friday night. But here, all we get is the barrage of cones, dividing lines between makeshift lanes to try and safeguard one set of speeding vehicles from the next. The success rate has to be shaky.

To get to LBX from the west, you have to make a U-turn, then cut through one sparsely populated cone section to reach the parking lot. There’s one spot left open. The smoking patio is full. Pounding bass is already drowning out our conversation with the door closed. Cheap fog machine smoke pours out every time it opens. “It’s gonna be 5 tonight”, the guy at the door says, like the cash value of such an occasion is arbitrary, random, borderline meaningless. This all feels appropriate somehow.

Inside, the volume triples. Jesse tells me this soundsystem setup is crazy. The mains were from Alice Cooper's Solid Rock teen center and the subs were in the old Nile Underground. Putting them here, in a room less than half the size, was an insane idea. Tonight, it’s cranked to its maximum. Even standing behind the oasis of the bar, it’s ear-piercing. But the crowd braves the wall of sound, pressed up against the small stage, dancing, shouting to each other, sipping on abounding Modelo tallboys.

Two DJs adorn the stage, one working and one not. Both are bouncing every bit as hard as the crowd. A house edit of “Anaconda” fades in over the speakers. A few of the smokers from outside rush in to catch the track - a welcome moment of familiarity from the crushing hard house motif guiding the set. The DJ sees it. Building off of the energy, “Anaconda” fades into the Bird Peterson remix of “Keep It Hood”, a track from 2010 that rides that perfect early-Mad Decent line of bloghouse-turned-festival party tent joy, even if it’s starting to sound rather ridiculous.

Halfway through “Keep It Hood”, the sound on the right-hand deck cuts out. Several seconds of silence pass before the technical issue is handled and another track goes up. To save the energy, they go straight into a pounding remix of Slayer’s “Raining Blood”. Because why not. Technicality is of no concern to this group. The world outside the parking lot hardly exists. And even if it did, it’s not half as interesting as this.

Two more DJs take the stage (Repose and Bry, look them up). Charli XCX’s “Trophy” obliterates any semblance of continuity from the previous set. The next hour is PC Music forward, with room for spacemakers like Wale & Skrillex’s “Saint Laurent”. I stopped cold at a transition about 40 minutes in and looked to Brittany. “Is this Kreayshawn?” After a brief moment of existential wandering, questioning where the last 7 years have gone, Sophie’s “Hard” wrestles me back to the present moment. The treble-heavy remix takes the overpowered sound system to its brink. The sound guy comes on and looks to Repose. They probably better try to not torch the thing with two hours of music still to come.

Grid Search pulls this off on the regular. The venue may change, as may the faces, but the spirit remains the same. The same party, the same vibe, the same feeling of nirvana you get when all the elements of the club line up in perfect synchronicity, all without an ounce of ego or chauvinism. Whatever you’ve been searching for, here, it’s found. Then, pile out the door past the wry smiles on the patio and go back to wherever it is you came from.