Second in line is Tripp, a shotgun car hauler "Dead Head" from Okaloosa County in North Florida. He’s just passing through town. Third in the queue is a guy who thinks he left his jacket in the bathroom on New Year’s Eve for the Felix da Housecat party. But the fourth guy proves to be the ultimate measure for the evening’s opener — the longtime, Dallas- seasoned DJ and label owner Scottie Canfield, aka Red Eye.
Elout is a film major student and an It’ll Do fixture on weekends. When doors open at 9:02 p.m., he beelines for the dance floor’s most valuable real estate, directly in front of the DJ booth. There's no one in the club except bartenders and Red Eye — Elout is unequivocally the first person on the dance floor, and he’ll stand post there for the next five hours.
Tripp, who’s proudly adorning his Grateful Dead Las Vegas Sphere tie-dye, takes a different approach. He’s an off-to-the-side, low-key guy. As people slowly file in, he graciously fields a pickup line from another dude but assures him he’s happy with his girlfriend back in the Sunshine State.
The fourth guy — who hadn’t said much outside in the moments before the front door was opened — begins to lap the dance floor at a feverish pace once inside. And like Red Eye’s opening set, which gained strength as he went along, the walker’s march did too.
Red Eye jabs with breaks, speed garage and acid house. At 9:30 p.m., 30 people are inside, at 9:45 p.m., it grows to 50 — most seated on the side having drinks. The walker’s march veers to an artistic stroll. An hour into the evening at 10 p.m., people notice the solo marcher as he’d rolled his pants up to his knees and lapped the dance floor more than 80 times.
Around 10:15 p.m., Red Eye begins punching hard, the bass pumping and the stroll becoming a waltz with twirls and hand-flailing choreography. At nearly 10:30 p.m., Red Eye’s set nears its end, and the dance floor gets crowded, which blocks the walker’s route. His hike concludes and he dances like everyone else. Red Eye waves to acknowledge he's done. The 100-plus people inside offer an enthusiastic round of applause as he hands the controls to Villager.
“There are the major rules for opening — don’t play the headliner’s music is the obvious one,” Canfield tells the Observer. “But some think the opener shouldn’t raise the energy too high, which I disagree with. I’m allowed to deliver energy if it’s mine and not like what the headliner wants to do.”
Raising the Barn Roof
The evening develops a little differently at Silo, Dallas’ newest venue. It has the highest dance floor ceiling in Texas, spacious enough for 3,000. It’s an 18+ venue where doors also open at 9 p.m. for a triple bill with resident-opener DJ Roy Montez, Adam Ten and legend Fatboy Slim.Unlike the slow drip entry at It’ll Do Club, at Silo it’s a Black Friday at Walmart stampede for $100 50-inch TVs. The strength of the opening flood and race for the front row varies depending on the lineup's popularity, but there is always an eager group who race for the front like they’re on an episode of Supermarket Sweep.
This Friday is no different, with 100 in line outside when the door opens. Roy Montez is on the turntables waiting for them.
Montez as an opener is part DJ, part historian. His Soundcloud account is a timeline of almost all his opening sets from the last decade. He’s primed dance clubs for trance DJs such as Above & Beyond, and most recently he opened at Silo for Diplo, Deadmau5 and Eric Prydz.
“Adam Ten has a chunky tech house sound, much different than Fatboy Slim, but I wanted to bring in a house vibe for the Fatboy Slim fans I knew were there,” says Montez.
Preparation and research start on Monday for a Friday night opening set. Montez goes through recent tracklists for the DJ or DJs he’s opening for and tries to match their vibe, but all of their productions are a no-fly zone. Then Montez starts buying music — 50 or more tracks, he says — and putting them in Silo’s Pioneer Rekordbox.
Silo co-owner Patrick Tetrick has an innate understanding of Montez’s opener duties. Before he was a club owner, Tetrick was Sasha and Digweed’s road manager, and before he was road manager, he was a DJ. It was Tetrick’s chops as an opening DJ that caught the eye of Sasha and Digweed, which inspired them to bring him onboard.
“He 100% understands the mission, he warms the room, not too hot or too cold, and makes the headliners feel comfortable," Tetrick says of Montez. "He is an extension of the headliners and the venue itself. It's an underappreciated, lost art form, and he does it incredibly well, humbly with zero self-agenda. The opening DJ is a big deal. He takes a lot of pride in it, and we take a lot of pride in Roy.”
But not everyone understands the role of an opening DJ. Montez peruses his Instagram messages the next day and sees that most are positive. But there's also not-so-kind feedback from a dance floor punter who would prefer to hear “The Days (Notion Remix)" and other peak-hour bangers that crush at his frat parties. The criticism makes Montez laugh because the gulf of education this guy has yet to travel is insurmountable. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear — at Silo, it’s Professor Montez.
Girls Just Wanna ...
LadyLove opens for brunch at noon on Sundays and is already lively when DJ Oscar Lozada plays his first track to officially commence the Global Warming party, a second Sunday addition to the Lady Love calendar. The bar is full of smiling faces enjoying the day’s four specialty mocktails as part of the popular (and cute, really) “Dry January” movement. The drinks are on-brand named: Sade, Beetking, Orange Moon and The Healer, a shot of Pura Vida Puebla Mezcal can be added for $5.The sitting area to the side of the dance floor is also full. Several are plowing through chicken wings by Lord of the Wings, which has popped up with a food truck out in the parking lot. But the dance floor is chicken-wing bone dry —not a soul is on there, yet.
“I like to play everything from house music to top 40," says Lozada. "I play straight reggaeton over at Revelers Hall, but here [Lady Love] I play open format for our monthly Global Warming party. We start the night at 8 p.m. and to get the night going, people like to hear something they can sing along to, something they know.”
Lozada co-hosts the monthly event with DJ Junk Food; the duo previously hosted the party up the street at another Bishop Arts staple, Tiny Victories.
Lozada’s singalongs by Rihanna, Feid and Amaarae are working, and by 8:30, a few people are dancing. And what open format set would be complete without a plea for something from the new Bad Bunny album? Diana Sosa, a big Lozada fan, has to call it an early night because tomorrow’s Monday and work calls, but she would subsequently serve as the spokesperson for the Bad Bunny album.
LadyLove is the most eventful venue in Dallas and it has nine residencies to prove it.
“Every Night has a Concept, So Check Our IG Daily,” reads the bar's calendar. The schedule is loaded with seasoned DJs such as Wanz Dover, DJ Lat, DJ Sober, Gabe Mendoza, Brandon Blue and others. The DJ booth and dance floor relationship at Lady Love is more intimate than at It’ll Do or Silo, and while LadyLove has a “No Requests” sign, it doesn’t matter.
By 8:45 p.m., a few more people are on the dance floor, but it’s sleepy by LadyLove peak-hour standards. It’s the perfect opportunity for Diana Sosa to pitch Bad Bunny requests to Lozada. The “No Requests” is in full view, but he kindly obliges.
“I got you, I got you,” Lozada says with a laugh. “I’m gonna play it.”
LadyLove is a quintessential local venue, and in the quiet moments at the beginning of the night, it’s a chance for people to steamroll the “No Requests” sign and plead their case.
At almost 9 p.m., Sosa returns to the DJ booth — this time with a Paleta shot, perhaps as part of her Bad Bunny lobbying effort. Nonetheless, it’s a kind gesture. Be assured: the new Bad Bunny album will make Lozada’s track list.
A primal energy crescendoes in the quiet moments when the club opens and you can still smell the Fabuloso. When it reaches peak hour, the walls begin sweating. Most DJs are set in their ways and how to start the evening is no different, but all share a common goal — to invite people to the dance floor.
Few DJs in the world, not just Dallas, have opened for more headliners than Red Eye, and he has green room and DJ booth chats with all of them. Roger Sanchez once asked him to join for a back-to-back at the end of the night and he’s even traveled to Europe to open for another Dallas DJ, Maceo Plex.
“Most headliner DJs I talk to tell me they wish they could play opening sets,” Canfield says. “You can be as weird as you want, build something and set the vibe for the night.”
