Skytrain Pop Up Rave
On Friday morning I woke up in Dallas at 6am and posted a tiktok saying “hey vancouver, text me the word TRAIN if you wanna try a different kind of pop up.” I had two flights that day. I flew to Denver, the texts had started to come in. By the time I landed in Vancouver at 3pm, it had started to circulate. I hadn’t told anyone what the plan was yet.
At 5PM we said, meet at New Westminster skytrain station at 9. We’re doing a pop up on the train. We’re riding it all the way downtown. I grew up in New West and I thought it would be fun to do the same route I used to take growing up. A personal touch! These things are sort of planned, but also you can only plan so much. As the numbers came in we realized it might be helpful to have an “afterparty” planned, so we called Steamworks Pub at 6PM and said, can we bring a few friends later tonight for a DJ set in your side room. They said yes? I can’t believe it. Great. Let’s go.
At 8:30 we got to New West Station. The rest of the crew continued 4 more stops. The plan was they would setup earlier so when we boarded the gear would already be good to go. We did this pop up later so we didn’t fuck with people’s rush hour commute. So we waited in the Pizza Garden, the skytrain cops had showed up, there were rumblings “a concert” was happening. At 9PM i called Kyle and asked what stop they were at, the phone broke up, cutting out, I heard “colum…..” I knew he meant Columbia, and that he was entering the tunnel before New West. Fuck! We ran as fast as we could up the platform. Nothing prepared me for what was at the top.
As we got to the platform there were hundreds of people, you couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe this many people showed up. Everyone was being respectful, the vibes were positive. People were cheering. I made my way to the platform, the skytrain cop informed me that everyone was being great. He said that they would hold the train at the platform so people could board safely. Amazing. The train pulled up. The gear was setup. We had wireless speakers, LED lights, we went for it. The crew who helped with this did so much work, I’m grateful for them. We boarded and I started playing, all the way to waterfront. Just like we planned. I played new music for the first time. Everyone sang the whole time, the energy was unreal!
photo by Kyle Lee
When we got to Waterfront a few other skytrain cops were there, helping people off, and everyone was being so respectful to keep things safe and the vibes positive. I can’t really put into words how special this whole thing was. We walked over to Steamworks Pub and filled the side room for a boiler room styler after party. That was even crazier. I was happy we could do something for those who couldn’t fit on the train, or those who couldn’t hear. It’s hard to get more than 3 speakers on a train haha. Thank you Vancouver. Thank you for turning up. Thank you to the skytrain staff for being chill. These are special times!
-felix
Btw, I have a new song out friday.
Listen to a preview here. And pre-save it… but only if you like it!
PS: Text me where we should pop up next. I love ideas.