St. Patty’s weekend is full of activity, but my favorite part is The Silent Disco. The opportunity to be able to jam out to Twenty One Pilots at a school dance? No way! Unheard of!
Well, not at this event! Anyone can dance to the songs they’d like. No one is judging, just dancing. People screaming “Girls just wanna have fun!” while others are yelling “Stacy’s mom has got it going on!”
It’s a complex narrative of people who just wanna exist in the same space but also enjoy the music they love.
The event begins with everyone getting a pair of headphones that have three channels, red, green, and blue. When you switch the channel, you get a different DJ. Each DJ has drastically different music tastes, with one channel playing favorites from the 80s, to another playing 2000s nostalgia, to one even playing St. Olaf Choir melodies. This allows there be a culmination of groups being able to rock out to “California Girls,” while someone else is singing to an “Um Yah Yah” remix, and another blasting “I Will Always Love You” in their ears. If someone wishes to dance to the same song as you, they can change the channel, or they can continue to rock out to their Dad Rock content.
March 15’s DJ selection was a good mix of all of these genres, playing songs from the past, to summer favorites like “Guess” by Charli XCX. It meant the fans of the oldies could stay on the blue channel while others could swap on over to the red channel and find what they were looking for.
Music taste is so subjective, one person’s favorite artist can be trash to someone else, but on this night none of that matters — and that is why I love this event so much! I can find one song enjoyable while someone else doesn’t, but we can still be dancing together. Silent Disco is the epitome of “this is my song, guys!” Not everyone understands why it is your song, but it is and it matters to you, so that is all that matters! I will forever be thankful for this event, so thank you Programming Board for keeping it going year after year! We may sound silly yelling in the quiet, but know that is what we have always wanted to do! Yell like no one is listening, and dance like nobody’s watching. So please, love what you love with such abandon, because everyone deserves to have their interests and not feel stupid for them.
