The date was Tuesday, December 31, 2013. It was late evening. I arrived at Pier 94 on the lower West side of Manhattan with some Stanford folk, eager to listen to the musical styling of the Swedish DJ, Alesso.

Having seen him over the summer at Electric Zoo on Randall’s island, I had high hopes for another great show. Security was tighter than I was used to, and my wait in the cold came to a close with the most intrusive pat down of my life. Ignoring my purse that I opened for her, the security officer jumped right into some second-base action. I didn’t even know her first name.

After we entered the old warehouse and checked our coats, we began our journey to the front of the crowd. Since one of the openers, Clockwork, was still playing, it was still possible to push through the throng of people and we claimed our place in the third row. Energy was high all around, with everybody excited for Alesso to come on stage and ring in the new-year. He began his set at around 11:45, and appropriately played his hit song “Years” during the countdown to 2014. Feet were jumping, hands were waving, and bodies were sweating as flashing lights poured over the crowd. I imagine that at this time many people posted Instagram selfies with some thing like “These will be the years! #Alesso” underneath¾if they weren’t too busy sharing a beautiful, chaste kiss with a stranger, of course (à la FMOTQ.)

Alesso was putting on a great show, and unfortunately for me as a muscularly challenged 5’4” female, this encouraged people to push closer to the stage. Some concertgoers claimed to have lost their friends or significant others, who naturally were standing in the very first row. Right. This was not something I wanted to hear when my movement was limited to being bumped back and forth between guys who were grinding on girls by swaying their hips from side to side like 5-year olds trying to hula dance. I’ve been to big shows like this before, but this crowd was pushier than anything I had experienced. For around half an hour, I was completely miserable being jostled around by hordes of people who towered over me. Elbows pierced me in the neck, and my face was often shoved into the armpits of heavily perspiring males. I also was desperately trying to avoid bumping into people behind me, for fear of confusing overzealous men into thinking I was trying to dance with them. “I will lose my mind!” I screamed painstakingly as Alesso played “Calling.”

I consider myself to be a relatively laidback person, but most of the strangers who surrounded me (and had the audacity to try to push in front of me) would have probably disagreed. I informed them all very firmly that there would be no room for them. On the one hand, I felt guilty for being so uncool towards others, but on the other, I didn’t want to suffocate. It was a difficult toss-up, but I made the latter my priority. Where were all the proponents of PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect — a raver mantra)? I missed them, and there were way too many inconsiderate thirsty guys and gals trying to get it on in the audience. It was 100 times worse than an all-campus.

At some point, I was pulled to a different spot in the crowd, closer to the people I came with. Alesso was playing a mash-up of Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t You Worry Child” and Avicii’s “Don’t Wake Me Up,” and I was motioned to look at some woman standing in front of us. I thought it was the lights tricking me at first, but there was no doubt that this woman was in her fifties, and she was shorter than I was. She was Asian too, and therefore a kindred spirit. Despite the fact that one of the security guards in front of the stage was laughing at her (kind of rude if you ask me), she was having a blast. She was waving her arms in the air and jumping up and down and she became an inspiration to me. I powered through a mash-up of “Pressure” and “I Need Your Love,” and then Alesso’s version of “If I Lose Myself,” looking to my newly-found spirit guide to keep up my energy. Some guy standing behind me caught a piece of falling confetti and tried to give it to me, but I pretended not to notice because I was enjoying the music and because it was a weird thing to do. None of the people I went with were too charmed by the random guys around us, but they weren’t pushing anybody or causing a commotion, so I was content to coexist in the same space. We formed a nice unit: us Stanford chicks, the random guys, and this older woman who was raging hard.

We danced through Alesso’s final song, “Under Control,” after which he announced to the audience, “I fucking love each and every one of you.” What a nice guy. And what a good-turned-horrible-turned-wonderful night.