A couple of months ago, my mother called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to this “music thing” that she heard about in her neighborhood that weekend. I said yes, unaware that this “music thing” was the New York City music event of that weekend.
It was the inaugural Experts Only festival, a music festival hosted by D.J. John Summit on Randall’s Island. The DJ played house music the entire afternoon.
Experts Only was the whole nine yards: food stalls, merch stands, beach balls bouncing off the top of the crowd, a woman dancing on stage at all times, and someone who was clearly on ecstasy and therefore not dancing at all to the beat. The whole thing was like a big high school football game, only instead of school spirit you were
I was entirely unprepared for the music festival that I walked into, wearing a long sleeve black shirt and jacket. I was the most fully clothed person there, aside from my mom. I looked like a narc.
Everywhere I looked, there were sheer body suits and crop tops. Ass crack and butterfly tattoos were also very much in, as were pashminas and chainmail waistbands. Influencers and wannabe influencers posed for pictures in their outfits. The event was in full swing.
We danced our way to the front of the crowd, squeezing through the mesh of bodies, and when we needed a break from the dancing, we sat in a field drinking vodka lemonades and eating street tacos.
My mother nodded along to the music. I jumped up and down like a lunatic.
We got there in the early afternoon and then stayed late into the night, technically morning. At the end of the night, we caught the ferry, with me limping from how hard I danced. I ended up pulling a muscle in my leg and then freaking out that I had a varicose vein, because of how it was bulging out of my calf, but it was worth it to experience such an awesome music festival.
It’s not often that I get to be pleasantly surprised when an impromptu weekend hanging out with my mother turns into a wild night of drinking and dancing at a New York City music festival. My mother, despite having a good time, has decided not to join me next year.
This was my first time at a music festival, but I am determined for it not to be my last. This year, I will be sure to return to Expert’s Only in a crop top with my friends, ready to have more vodka lemonades and street tacos, like the twentysomething that I am.
The Tragic Queen,
Raquel
The Tragic Queen 