It’s no secret that we are huge fans of Green Velvet. We’ve featured him on our Mix of the Week, and saw him at Praia Urbana last year, and that’s just the recent stuff! Needless to say, we catch him every time we can. This time, he was coming to Clé Houston at a day party. This format is often a hard sell because generally people simply want to go out at night. However, it’s worked for years for Praia Urbana, which packs crowds every time. We were intrigued.
When we arrived, the first thing that we thought was “Miami.” It simply didn’t feel like we were anyplace close to Houston swamps. The weather was perfect, Little Martin’s beats were on point, and the patrons and staff were beautiful. There were cabanas all around a nice sized clear pool, lots of seating for those not wanting the shade, and hookahs and food available for purchase. It was a great place to sit and headbob for a while to get in the mood.
At about 5, the man himself came out to meet and greet fans. He was gracious and polite, and really really tall. Yes, we fangirled and took a photo. How could we not? The man is a legend in any of his personas. After about 30 minutes of this, he went ahead and took the decks.
This set was incredible. It was like a true retrospective of his career. Opening with “Voicemail,” which is a hilarious tongue-in-cheek commentary on fame, he really hit a retrospective of the hits throughout his career. He played almost all of our favorites: “Bigger Than Prince,” “La La Land,” “Shake and Pop,” “Millie Vanillie,” “Lazer Beams,” “Flash,” and probably much more that got blurred by vodka tonics. The ONLY sad part is that he didn’t drop “Genedefekt,” which is a personal favorite (never would have ever assumed that he would though, but since he was dropping everything else…).
Green Velvet was not just another head bobbing behind a booth. When people went to take a selfie with him included, he would smile and get posed in the photo, or even take photos for some patrons with their phones. It’s rare for a DJ to be this engaged with the crowd, but it’s incredibly refreshing to see. The crowd itself was engaged with each other as well. We made friends in the crowd, cheered either other on, and there were random hugs all throughout the night. All of this, while wearing our classiest beachiest best. Even the neighbors in the apartment across the street did a little fist bumping on their balconies.
What a party, what a night. The man always delivers, but we would have not dreamed we would have so much fun. One of us even did a triathlon in the morning, and couldn’t stop dancing the entire set! Thank you, Green Velvet, for giving us another gift of carefully crafted insanity and joy. We can’t wait to do it again.
Journalist/blogger since 2009 and music lover since 1980. Bex now travels the world and writes and takes photos of dance events, creates art in various media, sings quietly to her cat in the shower, and occasionally builds something that tends to involve a blowtorch. She can usually be seen hiding behind some sort of camera rig.
