Corruption: Black Moon Beach Party

****- The annual prelude to fresher copulation was still enjoyable as a Third Year.

Beach Bop Corruption Electic Method Freshers Lovers Electric Mr Woodnote Robinson UV

 

Corruption: Black Moon Beach Party, Robinson College, 10th October, £9.50.

Corruption (Robinson’s annual uber-Bop) usually serves two functions, neither of which applied to me this year. Firstly, it serves as a hormone charged prelude to fresher copulation or humiliation. Secondly, it provides a stage for the return of recently graduated Binsonites who proceed to tell their war stories of how everything is fucked in the outside world. Thankfully the fact that the main stage line-up was actually really good this year meant that this didn’t matter.

The real fun of course happened in the weeks leading up to the event itself. Robinson’s Senior Tutor decided that the name ‘Corruption’ was too redolent of naughtiness (read: fun) and demanded that it be called the ghastly and rather utilitarian sounding ‘Annual Fresher’s Bop’ or ‘College Bop’. The students, thankfully, refused to back down. This led to an odd situation whereby College authorities solipsistically referred to the event as the ‘College Bop’ whereas everyone else called it ‘Corruption’. The sign above the opening slyly read ‘College Bop aka Corruption: Black Moon Beach Party’ with the words ‘College Bop’ almost unperceivable.

Black Moon Beach Party apparently refers to something in Thailand, but I’m too gap year illiterate to know what it is. In practice it translated as wearing beach gear and UV paint on a biting October evening. Some individuals also failed to heed the opening warning of my last review and took to wearing sunglasses inside. Everywhere looked pretty damn spiffing this year though, with a UV body paint booth as well another selling frozen Margaritas and Daiquiris (imagine the Slush Puppy mascot urinating into a cup after an evening at The Vaults and you’re about there).

The line-up was similarly good, with Mr. Woodnote kicking things off in style. His dedication of one song to all the aspiring drug dealers out there pleasantly foreshadowed the stench of weed that emanated from him as he walked past me later. Lovers Electric were the real coup of the evening though, their indie synth-pop being really danceable and shockingly unpretentious. Unorthodox instrument fetishists surely soiled themselves in excitement at seeing Eden Boucher playing what appeared to be a little red piano stolen from Shroeder out of Peanuts. Headliners Eclectic Method’s DJ set was impressive mainly for the synching of music videos with his mixing, chopping and scratching. At times I felt like a bemused spectator at a vast orgy between all the mash-up videos on YouTube but I have to admit that ‘Bonkers’ was combined really well with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. It also provided the aural wallpaper to the fresher mating rituals. One sophisticate simulated analingus on what I hoped to dear god was his girlfriend and not a recent acquaintance. Another lothario pulled his sweaty T-Shirt over his prospective partner’s head. Depressingly, the latter of these techniques actually appeared to work.

The night ended with a long-distance call to my girlfriend in Italy. At our very first Corruption all those years ago (well two years ago) I had looked after her while she threw up into her toilet. As I sat outside the bathroom door I couldn’t help but listen to the increasingly loud session of gay sex taking place next door. So specific were their coital announcements that I could discern who was the top and who was the bottom so to speak. Nothing as noteworthy happened last night, but then I can’t really blame the organisers for that can I? After all they thoroughly succeeded in their goal in supplying an event that catered for freshers, undergraduates and returning graduates alike. With all that excitement out of our collective systems we can now return to supervision work or unemployment feeling suitably sated.