Last updated: September 30, 2010 8:51 pm
Alison Clack — The Brunswickan (University of New Brunswick)
FREDERICTON (CUP) — There’s a party forming like a bad storm, and it’s rolling over the Rockies, across the Prairies and is headed for the East Coast.
Tom Kuzma and Gary Lachance have been travelling around the world for the past five years, staging unsolicited dance parties everywhere they go. Kuzma and Lachance are currently making their way across Canada, boombox at the ready. Anyone interested in joining the fun only needs their own boombox with an FM dial set to the right channel.
While the ability to have such a massive and insane dance party might seem dubious in the face of liquor laws and noise violations, Lachance says there have been little issues with the police thus far.
“That’s been one of the biggest surprises of doing these [parties]. At least in Vancouver, the cops have been really great,” explained Lachance. “We realize that doing one of these is a little crazy and [the police] have showed up for pretty much every party to see what’s going on, but we’re just always respectful. Everyone’s just singing and dancing having a good time, not wrecking anything or getting in any fights.”
While a little bit of debauchery seems to be at the heart of the parties, Lachance assures partygoers that while liquor may be featured in the festivities, it is not a central part. A number of party participants have in even told Lachance that they stayed up and danced all night despite not having a single drop of liquor.
“That’s the [appeal] with these parties. When you go to the bar, it’s just such a boring atmosphere that you sort of have to get drunk to have a good time,” he said.
“With this, it’s a totally different scenario. Anybody at any age can come out, we can go wherever and just have fun all over the city. It’s not really about the drinking at all. It’s just about having fun.”
This party-hearty attitude started off innocently enough. Lachance says the idea stemmed from a bike-riding event that he and Kuzma used to attend. They, and about a hundred other people, would get together and bike around Vancouver with their iPods hooked up to a boombox.
“One night, this other guy brought his own, too. Both our iPods died so we tuned the radios into the same radio station. It was a really cool effect having two sound systems playing the same thing, so the idea just came to us. What if we had 100 boomboxes doing the same thing?” Lachance explained.
That was in 2006.
Three years later, the boys held the first decentralized dance party. Lachance says the party was held on a hidden beach outside of town and only 20 or so close friends attended. However, the boys had bigger things in mind.
“Right from the start we said our goal was to increase it a hundred-fold. It was a little bit of a joke, but it was something to go for. But it actually turned out happening. We had 2,000 people show up for our last Olympic party only six months later,” said Lachance.
And plans for the two-man party engine are still growing, Lachance assured.
“After this tour our goal is to go to every single country on the face of the Earth. The centrepiece of that will be the ‘-stan tour.’ All the ‘-stans’ — like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Oh, and Transnistria!”
While not a ‘-stan’ country, Lachance explains that Transnistria, a small country alongside Ukraine, is a unique place that they don’t want to miss.
“It’s this crazy strip of land between the two countries that formed when the Soviet Union collapsed. A bunch of crazy Russian generals made their own country in the middle there. It’s called a phantom state, meaning no country recognizes it as a state. They call it Europe’s black-hole.”
While the guys have big plans in mind for the future, for now they’re staying in Canada. They originally drafted up a cross-Canada tour with over a dozen cities, but resources and money have caused them to postpone some of the stops until the spring.
For now, the two are planning a brief five-day fall tour in the Prairies, Toronto and are making an unexpected stop in Fredericton.
“The response was totally crazy. The Facebook event page for Fredericton is crazy, and we only know like, two people from Fredericton,” Lachance said.
Lachance and Kuzma are asking fans to raise money for the event. But despite Fredericton’s overwhelming Facebook response, the city had only raised $35 as of Sept. 26. Even Saskatoon, who has raised the most money, only has $285 to show for its efforts.
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