| Event | Fantasy Presents Eusexua |
| Date | October 19, 2024 |
| Location | The Chocolate Factory, Brooklyn, NY |
| Attended | 11:45 PM – 6 AM |
| Performers | FKA Twigs, Young Male, Dr. Rubinstein, Meilgaarden |
FKA Twigs Goes to the Rave
“Yeah everyone is acting like eusexua is the apocalypse” – unknown writer
That’s an accurate way to describe the hype around the Fantasy/Eusexua party. People were treating this rave like it was the second coming of christ. It was the social event of the season. Everyone wanted to be there, everyone was going to be there.
There was no way I was missing this (said me and thousands of other people). But really, I was not missing this for the world. My admiration for FKA Twigs extends beyond her artistic talent. I love Twigs not just for her music, but for her bravery and vulnerability.
In March of 2021, FKA Twigs was on the cover of Elle USA. Her interview saw her open up about her abusive relationship with Shia LaBeouf. Her interview deeply deeply touched me. It inspired and helped me to leave an abusive relationship I was in. So there was a lot of emotion and excitement behind my desire to see her.
While excited I also had my fair share of doubts and concerns about the party. To me, both the location and lineup left much to be desired. I didn’t feel that either really represented the NYC scene at all. On top of that, I was worried about what the experience was going to be like.
The LA Eusexua put on by TUNNEL, had a lineup that felt more true to NYC than Fantasy’s did. While there were locals on the lineup, it didn’t feel like a New York party. I mean honestly, I wasn’t too excited to see any of the DJs on the lineup.
Then there was the location: the Chocolate Factory. Even when it was a bit more underground, it still kind of sucked. The flow of the space is complicated and can feel cramped and overwhelming even when capacity is not an issue. Add in a hexagonal glass box to the middle of the room and hundreds of Twigs fans, and you have a pretty severe traffic issue.
We had gotten there early as my intel had told me Twigs was supposed to go on at 12:30 am. My friends and I bopped around a bit, doing lines upstairs and chatting with friends. Around 1 am I hit the dance floor and tried to get into the music. But the room was filled with too much anticipation and excitement. The entire crowd was whispering about when she was going on, how she was gonna get into the glass box, etc. In those moments it felt kind of cool to be part of this grand spectacle.
The venn diagram of Twigs fans and ravers is ALMOST a circle… ALMOST, not totally. It felt more like there were a bunch of fan girls than there were a bunch of ravers. I of course expected there to be fans, but I was expecting fewer fan girls (girls non-gender specific). Fantasy is somewhat known for having a hard door. And when tickets came out it was communicated to the public that this was going to be a hard door, but in truth, it was not. There were tons of people who clearly had never been to a rave before. While most people followed the dress code, it still didn’t feel quite right. There were a lot of Twigs copy cat looks, and tbh she is the only one who can pull off that hair.
I had really hoped that the overall vibe of the party was going to be “rave with a performance” and not a “concert that also happens to be a rave.” Unfortunately, instead of this being a powerful artistic performance for attendees, it was a mini-concert for whoever could get their hands on a ticket. And I do mean whoever.
It was clear that there were two main points to this party
So everyone could say that they were at a rave where FKA Twigs performed
For Twigs to build hype and generate content for the album drop
I don’t even think this party was a crash grab by Twigs (if defs was by other ppl tho). It was more just a way to farm content and bring her fans into the “world of her new album.” But this was still a cheap way to commodify the underground rave scene, and that makes me upset. If someone wants to experience a rave they can go to one themselves. It doesn’t need to be force-fed to them as some “exhibition” or over social media.
I love that party girls are having a moment right now! It's cool that Twigs and Charli are using this aspect of their lives as inspiration for their music and imagery. But we currently live in a world where people like to watch raves on YouTube, and everyone thinks they can DJ. Partaking in rave culture right now is “in” and any artist doing so looks “cool.”
It's a hard line to walk with Twigs because I know the new album is inspired by techno and raving. I think Twigs has more of a right than any other pop artist to share what this scene and world are like, I just wish she was doing it differently. Or doing it better.
Young Male was doing a good job getting the crowd going, but I was shocked by the lack of dancing. The real ravers who didn’t care as much about the performance were on the dancefloor and were like “fuck it.” But it was clear that this was not an event made up of many real ravers I recognized from the scene. Tons of people just stood there holding down their spots, waiting for Twigs to go on.
Twigs finally went on around 2 am. What was cool about the NYC party over the LA and London ones, was this hexagonal glass box. It was made up of two-way mirrors, so when it wasn’t lit from the inside it was just a giant mirror, but when it was lit up it still maintained its mirror-like quality. During the performance, people recorded and sang along. The box wasn’t very tall so Twigs just crawled around and was barely able to sit up on her knees. She probably spent about 10-15 minutes doing some performance art piece where she was getting her body painted; she then played three songs and was done. I didn’t really care that she didn’t sing live, I wasn’t expecting that. But honestly, three songs?
At first, I was annoyed that my view of Twigs was blocked by iPhones and the reflections of iPhones. But after the performance, I kind of grew to love the visual gag. There are so many different ways to take it. Was Twigs reflecting back to us our inability to live in the moment—even while at a rave? Or was she poking fun at the underground world for being so serious but then so taken with this spectacle? It was a clever way to engage the audience post-performance. Still, I felt ripped off.
I knew tons of people were going to leave after she played, but I was shocked by the amount of people who left. Sadly I don’t think this was helped by Dr. Rubinstein’s performance. Acid can be hard to play, especially well, playing it all on vinyl…. A hard sell. Whatever energy was left on the dancefloor after Twigs’ performance dissipated quickly while Dr. Rubinstein played.
I almost left around 4:00 am, I was not vibing with the music and I was kind of having a shitty night. But out of an ounce of undying loyalty to the Twigs, or the concept of Twigs, I decided to stick it out for another little bit to see what would happen.
After about 4 minutes of dead air (I know) salvation came in the form of Swedish hottie Meilgaarden. Despite the brief lapse in music, Meilgaarden invigorated the dance floor with a fresh and energetic sound. She saved the party I just wish more people had been there to witness it. Perhaps her style is just more to my taste, but this was the kind of sexy energy that I had been longing for! Acid and electro is cool and all, but it's not really that sexy. If the name of the party is Eusexua, it better be a damn sexy party. And it shouldn't all be on your last DJ to bring that energy.
Fantasy parties are fairly well regarded here in the city. People still talk about when Freddy K played, or the one after Wirefest in 2023. So to see them fall short of their own potential is kind of sad. I mean yeah, at the end of the day FKA Twigs played a Fantasy party, thats cool. But this could’ve been a legendary party and it fell flat.
Meanwhile, the aesthetic of the rave is rippling out, on a mass scale, in videos to an iPhone near you. It's clear that the commodification of the underground is coming, and that there are people who are willing to cash in. Twigs, I love you and forgive you—and you better have a remix by Luke Slater on this album.