It is so hot in here even the walls are sweating. But this is no ordinary night at the Crystal Club strip club. Tonight, on the third day of the Strøm festival, the stripper podium holds ghetto house and Dance Mania legend Victor Parris Mitchell. Victor is laying down some seriously dirty and sweaty beats, turning the tiny packed room into a sauna.
The Strøm festival of Copenhagen always chooses highly original venues for the events. Everything from an ancient underground water aqueduct to a metro train. Tonight, we walk through a restaurant to the back, where a small spiral staircase lead into the basement. A very dark stripclub with mirrors, poles and wall to wall carpet appears. It is already steamy hot as the Superhoe DJs, Klaus B, Jkamata, Inspektor Skratz and Tim Driver raise the temperature. The club quickly fills to capacity and then Victor Parris appears. Everyone hovers around the tiny DJ booth as Victor Parrish bangs out classics. People are highly focused, absorbed in the beats and bass. The lyrics in ghetto house will never win any poetry prizes but that is not the point. They are perfectly fiting for this strip club setting where for more than two hours, Victor spins dirty grooves and drive the crowd into a frenzy.
The crowd may be in a frenzy, but I am a bit tired. I am working event no 7 or 8 already this week and have shot thousands of images. And we’re only on day 3. But I cannot resist all this old-skool awesomeness that Victor is playing, it makes even this grumpy old man groove and dance! This was definitely one of the more fun and quirky events to attend and shoot at the always awesome Strøm festival.
Tech info: There was very little light in the club, all images are shot at iso6400 and most of them wide open at f/1.4 with exposure as slow as 1/6th of a second to record any light on the sensor. The Fuji X-T1 really can see in the dark.