Passenger 747: An Anti-Gravity Dance Explosion

That's what the flier read. So I caught the plane. Boarding from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the 747 was packed with nearly 900 people, each having paid a few thousand dollars for an experience they'd never forget. I'm willing to bet that you've never seen a 747 with your own eyes, much less one with no seats, but the fucker was huge. Gigantic. It was like boarding a small city. All was pitch black inside with the exception of a couple of flashing strobe lights so you could get around without tripping over people. Almost exactly one half hour later, the music came on. And the plane took flight. And the lights went berserk. And the drugs kicked in.

You'd never expect it, but this 747, en route to London, probably had one of the five best sound systems on the planet. It was deafeningly loud, but in crystal clear stereo. The No Smoking lights were flashing with every kick of the bass drum. You couldn't tell whether you were being shaken by the roar of the music or mid-flight turbulence. Toward the front of the plane, bizarre stock footage of autopsies, obscure 1970s cartoons and high- school science films played on the movie screen.

Hundreds of thousands of feet up from the Atlantic Ocean, the party was just getting started. And with Propellerheads' blend of big beat, spazzy acid house, and electro- phunc fucking with peoples' heads, nobody was bitching. From the moment the first beat of "Take California" hit, the kids went psycho. This music was out to show you a good time, and that's all that mattered. For a moment, it tore you away from your worries (no one showed any concern that the pilot was on mushrooms and kept taking incredibly dangerous nosedives just to shake the place up) and zapped you into a land where the only thing on your mind was the music.

When the plane landed in London, everyone split up and headed straight for the record stores. I looked all weekend for a copy of Decksandrumsandrockandroll, but to no avail. "I don't know," the bloke at the Virgin Megastore had said. "We had 70 copies in stock an hour and a half ago..."

-Ryan Schreiber

Sound Clip:
"Take California"
MPEG-LayerII
64kpbs.44kHz.
250k.32sec.