Dayglow: A Paint-Filled Extravaganza

For those reminiscing about the good ol’ days of finger-painting and dainty arts and crafts, Dayglow may not be your best bet.
 
Often referred to as “The World’s Largest Paint Party,” Dayglow is a trippy, paint-filled rave that involves pulsing music, black lights, gyrating performers, quasi-circus acts (like laser beam-shooting stilt walkers), and, of course, lots and lots of paint.
 
My friends and I ventured out to Congress Theater in Chicago this past Saturday, April 9, to check it out. We walked in dressed in sharp white clothing—the dress code for the event—and came out looking as if a neon rainbow had exploded on us.
 
Ye hath been warned: Those who attend Dayglow will not come out unscathed. With paint freefalling from the ceiling, paint being squeezed out of revelers’ paint bottles, and paint covering the floor like impenetrable ooze, dancers are bound to emerge from the crowd enveloped in splashes of green, pink, and orange.
 
Throughout the night and into the early morning, DJs The Devil from Acapulco, Robbie Rivera, and David Solano performed. Neon lights and laser beams cut through the darkness. A mass of predominately college-aged students pulsed to the music and congealed before the stage.
 
My friends and I were brave enough to venture into the nucleus of this crowd. Let me just say, if you value your feet or appreciate them in even the slightest, please wear closed-toed shoes. I had the misfortune of wearing toe-bearing sandals, and oh, how I paid for it. My feet were tattooed in bruises by the end of the night.
 
Certainly, the aftermath of the event was less than appealing. There was a good amount of paint caked into everyone’s hair (It took three washings for me to get it out.), and despite the disclaimer on Dayglow’s website that the paint “washes out of most articles of clothing,” my clothes still remain slightly stained.
 
Not that I regret it. The stains are something like proud battle wounds sustained from arguably the most epic paint war of the century.  
 
Music and dancing; gooey, slippery, messy paint; energies and emotions on high—Dayglow has it all. Though you emerge from it a weary painted phantom, it is a paradigm of what it means to be young, silly, and alive. It is truly an intoxicating experience not to be missed.
 
And besides, where else can you turn a hallmark of your childhood into delicious debauchery?
 
Dayglow is currently hitting up major cities in the United States in its 2011 Escape Reality Tour. Find out more about the shows and buy tickets at dayglowtour.com