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If you had asked anyone at Monster if the So Cal rave scene is having serious problems this year they would have looked at you like you are on crack. For those seven hours, it never crossed my mind that CH36 is all but history, Insomniac is considering throwing in the towel, and all of the common venues from a year ago are shut down. Monster went off exactly the way GO planned for it to go off, and everyone in the So Cal scene should be very very happy about that. We can still have great parties, huge massive, and the best music anywhere in the world - right here in LA.

The best music all night? This is an easy one: MICKEY FINN !! I wish that I could have that set on tape! Finn made every other Jungle set sound annoyingly technical or just plain out dated. His set broadened my horizons about what Jungle can sound like, and let me dance without effort. I didn't count the measures or try to get on the beat, I just let the music lift my body off the ground and spring. His set was mixed so perfectly, that it never let me make a mistake about when a record was going to drop or quite down or change up. He made it easy. It was so easy to dance to that it felt like I was listening to a familiar funky House tape, although I had never heard most of those records before. And this is from a guy that is as old as my dad! SO, since I can't describe the whole set, I will just leave it at this... That was the state of the art in JUNGLE (not drum and bass)

Mulder's set was next. It was much harder edged and harder to keep up with, so I took a break and just listened to the beats zip by at 181 bpm. It was more of a spectacle for the mind than for the body. The beat even changed into a symmetrical Hardcore beat at times, and touched on the upper limits of what is Drum n Bass, and what is beyond drum n bass.

But this was not just a Jungle party. In the main room, there were hard progressive sets boarder lining between House and Trance, until Junior Sanchez, Felix the House Cat, and Derrick Carter began a House Trilogy that would last until 4 a.m. (3 a.m. with Daylight Savings time correction.) when this years Monster would come to an end.

In the parking lot, there was careful optimism from the other production companies and rave industry people. On one hand, Monster went off without a hitch, and in many ways was better than last year's event. On the other hand, last year's event had over 40,000 in attendance, while this year there were less than 15,000. 15,000 people from the new school, many of which I had never seen at a party before, 15,000 people that Go Ventures had to pull from general populous and clubs of Los Angeles, not from the once strong twice a week rave scene. Whether you want to see it as a rave scene that is still alive, or a new reborn rave scene, the fact remains that it is not the same scene as it was on October 28th, 2000. It is a smaller scene that now has room to grow, not a scene inflated to the bursting point with an inevitable crash lurking over it's head.