Johnny Moscow

Back in the early days of raves in New York City, parties popped up at a variety of unexpected locations, from fast-food restaurants to the subway. Promotion company Yayfriends is recapturing that spirit—this time with permission—via a November 18 silent rave on the Las Vegas Monorail. For Sound Check 2, the party returns to the tracks for an all-ages mobile event headlined by Donald Glaude.

“It’s the second silent rave we’ve thrown on the monorail, and it’s based around partying with a purpose,” says Johnny Moscow, Yayfriends’ founder and president. “Half the profits will go to the National Association for the Deaf. Our goal is to restore music to people who can’t hear it anymore. We’re just going to throw a party like anybody normally would, but we want to make sure something good comes out of it.”

The fun will take place on the No. 1 train wrapped with Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority branding; two of the four monorail cars will have DJs spinning, but attendees will have access to all four cars, and the silent rave headphones will tune into house or bass music no matter where you are. To obtain headphones, you’ll temporarily trade your ID and a $10 minimum donation before boarding (you’ll also get a wristband in case you need to disembark for a pit stop). You’ll also need to purchase a monorail pass, but the local fare ride pass only costs $1.

Taking place from 6 p.m. to midnight, the monorail rave will overlap slightly with a 21-and-up afterparty on the platform at the SLS station from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. for an additional $10 that includes an open bar. Local favorite Madam Filth and the Dancetronauts will headline.

For complete set times and details, head to Facebook and visit the Yayfriends Sound Check 2 Silent Rave on the Monorail event page. - Las Vegas Weekly

B y now, you’ve heard of a
silent disco where people
gather wearing headphones
tuned into a DJ’s set. But
what about a silent rave? On the Las
Vegas Monorail? Toward the tail end
of 2017, party people YAYfriends!
along with CVLT Photo, MNDST
Productions and ZEROdB presented
Sound Check 2, the second
installment of mobile music up and
down the Strip, much to the
confusion and delight of random
tourists that happened to catch a
ride surrounded by people dancing in
silence with LED-glowing
headphones. Taking over four cars on
the monorail, a portion of the
proceeds benefitted the National
Association of the Deaf.
“I do marketing for the Monorail
through my day job, so I kind of had
some contacts over there,” says
Johnny Moscow of YAYfriends! “It was
so successful the first time on such a
short notice and [small] budget that
we decided to make it a quarterly
thing,” he excites.
“[Sound Check 2] was a more unique
experience because we had two
‘stages’, if you will, on the one
train,” Moscow explains: “So, we
have one car for bass music and one
car for house music.” No matter
which of the four cars on the
monorail attendees boarded, they
could switch between the two
stations of live DJ sets on the
wireless Bluetooth headphones, even
if they weren’t in the car with that
DJ. The night culminated with a
headlining set from Donald Glaude as
a myriad of music lovers sardined
into the car where he was playing to
feed off Glaude’s infectious energy.
The result? “It was amazing — I’d do
it again,” says Glaude of his
experience. “Hopefully, they’ll have
me do it again whenever they need
me. I’ve never done anything like
that before and it took me 10
minutes to get my bearings, but once
that happened, the crowd was
amazing. I mean, it was really cool
and it was for a really good cause.”
The challenge, he says, was mixing
without monitors and while the
monorail was in motion as people
swayed with the curves in the track,
or when it stopped at each station.
“There’s nothing wrong with being
challenged,” adds Glaude. “I’m sure I
wasn’t completely perfect when I
played, but it wasn’t just about me
and my performance. It was about
the whole experience and that was
amazing. It’s harder than you think. I
almost fell a few times. I sat down a
couple times in my mix. That kind of
thing. It’s kind of like being on a
boat. I think it’s even a little bit more
intense, movement wise,” Glaude
punctuates.
“Donald came out and killed it,” says
Moscow. “We also had another
headliner on the second car, a guy by
the name We Bang, and lots of really
great supporting talent from local
artists like Loud & Killer and BGenius
from Splitbreed played,” he says, and
Moscow threw down a set as well
earlier in the evening.
When the monorail would pull into
each station, it was like a game of
musical chairs with headphonewearing
attendees of all ages
boarding, disembarking and running
between the different cars to get the
full experience. “From the
production standpoint, the fact that
you’ve got a 45-second window to
get on your ‘stage’ and then it’s gone
for 30 minutes, it’s sort of in that
aspect, prepares you for all kinds of
crazy stuff to happen,” says Moscow.
“It makes your crew a lot more aware
and they learn to be versatile. But
other than that, I’d say the biggest
challenges is just getting as many
people to come out as possible so
that we can collect as many
donations as we can,” he says. “We
just want to raise the maximum
amount of money as we possibly can
for people, while still doing the
things that we love and gathering
together for music.
“Every couple of minutes for 45
seconds, people are running around
like chickens with their heads cut
off!” Moscow laughs. For those not in
the know and just traveling between
casino stops, it was a surreal
experience, seeing people dancing
and ‘Whoop! Whooping’ in unison
without knowing what was being
played. “Somebody gets on and
they’re like, ‘What the hell is this?
Why are there all these super weird
people here’?”
Moscow goes on to outline how the
process runs. “We have our
volunteers on each train telling
people what it’s about and getting
the headphones, taking the
donations and stuff. Then we have
posters up that explains what’s going
on also.” Quite a few tourists got in
on the action and traded $5 and their
ID to borrow the headphones to tune
in to the music. “Over the course of
the night, we had well over 300
people,” Moscow says. “We need to
have clickers but it’s just really hard
to keep count because people are
running from train to train. And then
the numbers always get off because
some people just get on the train and
they’re tourists and they’re like, ‘I’ll
just donate some money’.”
Once the party-in-motion was over,
YAYfriends! also held an End of the
Line event after party on the SLS
station platform with a train parked
so people could escape the cold for a
bit and sit down if their dancing feet
were worn out. “Every time we do one
of these, it’s like a hundred people
I’ve never met there and they all are
becoming friends,” says Moscow. “I’d
say that’s like probably my favorite
part — just the community part and
bringing people together for a
cause.” DEANNA RILLING - DJ Mag