Love Parade SF 2004

Berlin, Germany was the original site setting for the massive and famous Love Parade. It's history dates back to the tear down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when the founder and main visionary DJ Dr. Motte, along with several other techno groovers, came up with the concept of the Love Parade. He devised a celebration to promote tolerance, respect and understanding between nations. To promote it in a new way without politicizing the event with speeches, they wanted to do it with music. As DJ Dr. Motte said "music.. speaks in thousands of languages and is understood by all". Love Parade, Germany The LOVE PARADE has grown from 150 participants and one truck on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm in 1989 to over a million ravers and 50 trucks. In 1996 it had to be moved to Berlin's Tiergarten due to its size. There, it became the biggest European event of its kind. See Love Parade, video, very cool. Since 2000 the the LOVE PARADE now demonstrates in other countries like Austria, England, Mexico, USA, Israel and South Africa. Love Parade, International October 2nd 2004 San Francisco becomes the host city of the setting for Berlin's famous Love Parade, San Francisco. The innaugural kick off was a rousing success as some estimates say over 50,000-150,000 participants rouse and revel in music and dance in the streets of the most vibrant and enlightened city in the United States. The parade was set to begin at the corner of Market and Beale streets with the first float leaving at 2 o’clock towards the scenic waterfront Embarcadero where it would drift towards the home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team and finally settle for a day long celebration near one of the SBC Park’s parking lots. The beats of drums and electronica filled the streets and the air was crispy-chill in the shadows of the city buildings. People wearing all fashions of vibrant colored fur, plastic, wigs, hats, and costumes of grandiose proportions were fantastic in thier execution and celebration. As the minutes passed the crowds swelled and grew to enormous proportions all slowly moving toward the final destination where the music and DJ laden floats would park for the party into the night. Music heard was drum and bass, deep house, and heavy progressive, loud and sexy. Everyone was dancing and grooving. Once the flesta landed at the party destination, the crowds continued to swarm, grow, and grow, and grow. These pictures I am showing represent the size of the venue and the enormous amount of people there. In any one picture, only a small fraction of the vast collective can be seen. The crowds were the same in every direction and continue to go around every corner. To see even more... look below. This is what I saw first walking in with my friends Ludi, Andy and John. Wow. We lost each other immediately. I love the saturation of color, bare with me... the subject matter allows for... These guys were going off. Great energy too! Is that a snake in your pocket... I turn another corner and see another swarm of humans... they keep appearing. I saw this tattoo and I had to take a picture. It was on the back of a beautiful woman... If you notice the backdrops and backgrounds are all different but the mass hoard of people stay the same in quantity! Ludi, my friend and roommate, met Paulynn and Eric at Earthdance and had been telling me about them. We all met up and danced the day away. These are some friends that I met there. Pauylynn and Eric B. We have since become very close and even had there wedding at my house. Family. Yeah, ummm, I don't know either, but they were good fun and really cool people. I was spreading the love by passing out www.Bonkum.com brochures, when a group of girls came up to laugh and dance with me. Ok, yes that is me in the subtle afro wig. It was amazing of the attention I was getting for just wearing a weak ass costume as mediocre as this. These girls came over and needed to dance with me. I swear I did not work it. They came to me and I did not even have one of my normal outlandish costumes on. Subtlety has its perks I guess. They were a lot of fun... we danced. The Frenchy's: Eric B. and Ludi. My posse dances... ...Ok, and we're back from the dance intermission... back to our regularly scheduled programming... Some characters that amuse me... ...and we dance again...the sun sets and we dance some more... The light as the setting sun was so beautiful. It made the people glo. Speaking glo, this was a glo stick dancer getting on his groove. These are some photos of a fire dancer. Check them out. Cool huh! We left the cold night air andd all somehow converged at the after Parade Lush Party on Harrison Strreet. Really fun time and the DJ's got off! My buddy Nate who finally found us! My friends Andy and Johnny Boy, somehow, somewhere we found them again. Yes that is me with the wig in a special lamplight self portrait. Experienced by The Bonkmaster as told to and written by Jordan Dawes. Jordan is a freelance writer who is also an inventor/designer/filmmaker and CEO for the company Bonk Designs @ www.Bonkum.com. Both The Bonkmaster and Jordan, explore, travel and search for the edge of social morality, openness, and the extreme being. They are Saving the World, One Orgasm at a Time! ©2004-Present, Bonk Designs