Thank god for Louis. Or was it Lewis? 

I was fading, realizing I had to choose between standing in line for food and sitting down. My legs felt like concrete with blood pounding through them, and food became secondary. We were about four hours into LadyLand, a distinctly queer music festival pumping and pumping at ‘Under the K’ Bridge Park. Now eight years old, this festival brainchild of queer nightlife impresario Ladyfag also resulted in a $150,000 donation from event sponsor Kiehl’s to the Ali Forney Center, a queer youth shelter in New York. 

Beats throbbed and twisted around me, lights flashing purple and neon green. A parade of people coursed through the venue, their magically intentional whale tails of neon and red, stockings of fishnet; their corsets pulled tight, harnesses tidily strapped; the occasional pair of butterfly wings even floated by. I loved watching people be so freely themselves, even as I found a place to sit on the sidelines. 

I had alternated these past few hours dancing and taking pictures, dancing and taking pictures, listening to The Illustrious Blacks chant “Suck My Disco!” in inflatable black headdresses. Seeing drag artist Beaujangless strut and swirl in spike stilettos. Seeing Australian “techno pop princess” Sam Quealy flick her blonde locks in perfect hairography with her “sexy French dancers,” as she called them. Listening to what seemed like an entire crowd sing along to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” as DJ Meredith Marks, in all of her rhinestones and sequins, spun the song into the air like fairy dust. To Cupcakke spit the wonderful nastiness of her song “Squidward Nose” into the mic, about “his dick smaller than my toes.” I watched my friends Stephen and Jesse dance carefree, having come down expressly for the evening from their home in the Hudson Valley, their arms winding upward toward the sky. I have absolutely no doubt people seeking out LadyLand could find there a place to feel like they belong, amongst the rappers and the house music, the drag performances and the butterfly wings. And our evening’s headliner, Kim Petras, hadn’t even gone on yet. I sat and watched LadyLanders go by when I heard a voice next to me. 

“Do you want a bite of an empanada? My husband and I ordered too many,” said the voice that would belong to Louis (or Lewis). As if seeing into my soul, Louis handed me a veggie empanada that was warm and toasty in my hands. “How did you know!” I laughed, and he offered me another one, this time a bite of beef. Was it my first LadyLand? he wanted to know. It was. Was it yours? I asked. It wasn’t–Louis and his husband had been coming for several years, having learned about it both by word of mouth and on Instagram.

So much can travel so quickly now to eyes and ears meant for them. I was glad to see LadyLand was able to find people who had been looking for it, maybe even before they knew it existed. Even more so, I was happy it drew people like Louis, who wanted to hear Our Lady Kim, yes, but would also happily share a bite with a stranger. But maybe stranger is the wrong word–if I was there, after all, we were in likely cut from the same cloth in some way. It was only two bites of an empanada but it felt like a hug.

Was this the LadyLand metaphor in action? It may only be one night, but here under the Kosciuszko Bridge, it was an embrace you’d maybe take with you into the rest of your night, your weekend, your year, until next time.

Legs stabilized, I made my way to the pit to photograph Kim, with her long legs and miniskirt and magenta heels to the moon, may the goddess bless and keep us all. Her album Detour had only been out for a month but a chorus of voices sang along with her just the same, cheering for every hair toss and exclamation of popstar perfection. After the standard three or so songs and out–the number of songs you can photograph from the pit–I went to find Stephen and Jesse in the crowd, in time for one of my own favorite songs from Detour, “Jeep.” Our arms linked and we swayed together. 

When people ask me in the coming days what I thought of LadyLand, these are the things I will tell them–about Louis, about Stephen and Jesse dancing, about watching people be themselves with abandon. About how I never thought LadyLand would be anything short of electric, and how I was right.