You Just Had to Be There: San Francisco’s Fake and Gay Boiler Room

Late this past Saturday night, April 29,  Boiler Room hosted a sold-out event in collaboration with party-starters Fake and Gay in San Francisco at The Midway. With a sensational line-up of twenty three artists and DJs, Boiler Room had The Midway operating at full capacity with bustling stages indoors and outdoors. The event itself drew an eclectic audience including but not limited to, queer folks in the Bay Area looking for good queer house music, people who love house music and wouldn’t miss a San Francisco Boiler Room under any circumstances, and Midway frequenters who have their fingers on the pulse of San Francisco nightlife. 

Founded in 2010, Boiler Room TV started in London as an online platform that would showcase underground music and culture. The first Boiler Room event was held in a “boiler room” of a warehouse in East London, with just a few friends and a single camera. Since then, Boiler Room began to live-stream events from other locations around the world, including Berlin, New York, Tokyo, and now San Francisco. The platform quickly gained a reputation for showcasing up-and-coming DJs and underground music scenes from around the world and has since become a leading voice in underground music culture.

With DJs like Sadgayboi spinning a house remix of “West Coast” by Lana Del Rey, the main stage wasn’t dead for a second all night. The crowd was dancing and sweating all night to the records being spun, keeping the overall energy high well into the night. But it was no secret that the real star of the main stage was Pussy Riot, starting multiple mosh pits just minutes into the set. As soon as the music began, the crowd chugged their drinks, looked to their friends in approval, and opened up the pit just as they were told. 

The other stages were also just as lively with a slightly different vibe about them. There was one room indoors spinning almost exclusively drum and bass records keeping the BPM no less than 175 all night. Outdoors the house music was still bumping as folks were taking a moment to reconvene with their friends and down vodka redbulls to give them the sustenance they needed to keep up with the lineup. Though it was a bit warmer at another stage downstairs, the crowd’s energy started strong and stayed strong throughout the night, especially during DJ Dangerous Rose’s set. Regardless of what stage you were at, you were guaranteed to be moving your body with unrivaled stamina.

Fake and Gay inc, founded by DJ and curator Adam Kraft (who was on the lineup himself), was created in hopes to build a sanctuary for the Bay Area’s queer and trans youth who love dance music. Fake and Gay has hosted countless pioneering artists in queer-pop and queer-dance music along with a number of other genres. At this point in its career Fake and Gay, consistently brings Bay Area LGBTQ+ youth out without fail, and this event was no exception.

This Boiler Room event with the help of Fake and Gay was able to bring light to a space that is needed for queer and trans youth. Queer clubbing spaces that are explicitly designed for the LGBTQ+ community provide a much needed safe and inclusive environment for folks to express themselves and socialize with ease. These spaces continue to play an important role in queer culture and activism, serving as a place for queer people to find community, build solidarity, and create social and political change. All while playing good music, of course. 

    Article by Sravya Gadepalli