This month, we are going WAY back to December 8, 2007, to revisit Evil Day. This date is very significant to me in many ways. It was my first Wizard Rock show as a fan, it was the first NYC HP Meet-Up Group event (TGTSNBN) I’d ever attended, and it was my first in-person experience with the Harry Potter Fandom.

I’m going to get a bit personal in this installment of Into the Pensieve, so let me first put everything into context.

In 2007, many of us were grieving the end of the Harry Potter book series. We’d spent the summer devouring Deathly Hallows, and then desperately trying to hold on to the joy that the books had given us for years. Until then, I had consumed all the books in a veritable vacuum, unaware that the fandom existed, having never attended a midnight book release. I couldn’t stand being alone in my own head after Deathly Hallows. I needed to talk to people who were as emotionally invested in Harry Potter as I’d been.

I found The Group That Shall Not Be Named (TGTSNBN), one of the most active Harry Potter fan clubs ever, and began lurking in the Yahoo group email list, trying to muster up the courage to meet other fans in real life. At the same time, I found Wizard Rock and gobbled up everything I could find online, connecting with fans and bands on Myspace.

In November of 2007, I shared some bawdy Harry Potter inspired rap lyrics with TGTSNBN, garnering some laughs. The lyrics for “Draco Malfoy”, “S-L-Y in Slytherin”, and “Death Eaters Do It Best” were circulated before Swish and Flick was even a thing. To be honest, I didn’t think it would ever be a thing. I was already a musician and a producer, still active with my band Cookie Galore after a decade. Even though I knew Wizard Rock existed, I never thought of combining my all-consuming love of Harry Potter with my music life.

That all changed on Evil Day.

I always had a thing for villains, and this event themed around the evil elements of the Harry Potter universe sounded like a great time. But the thought of going to a party to be with a bunch of strangers, some of whom I’d only known online by their user names, was enough to set off my social anxiety. If Pamela, my first IRL Potter friend, hadn’t agreed to jump blindly into the fray with me, I might never have attended Evil Day.

What I found at the catering hall above Ray Bari Pizza in Manhattan, was a family. Within minutes, I went from being a noob standing on the fringes of the crowd trying to navigate this crazy new subculture, to dancing with other costumed baddies while bands sang, literally in our faces, about the thing that we all loved. I’d just arrived, and already, I felt like I belonged.

 

Dressed as a weak approximation of Bellatrix Lestrange, not even kidding myself that I was cosplaying, I was welcomed and immediately initiated into the group. Nobody questioned my authenticity as a fan or scrutinized my costume, or tested my Potter knowledge.

Coming from the indie electronic music scene, where people were constantly gate keeping and questioning your validity as an artist or fan, the HP Fandom and Wizard Rock was a breath of fresh air.  It didn’t matter that I’d never heard of Wizard Rock until six months prior, I belonged as much as the fan who’d been there from the first Harry and the Potters gig.

When Draco and the Malfoys took the floor at Evil Day, my mind was thoroughly and utterly blown. Check out this vid from the show, and you’ll see. I’d never been to a concert with that level of positive energy, where you could stand inches close to the band. It was that enthusiasm and energy, which Brian and Bradley could both convey and illicit, that inspired me to take my silly lyrics and make Wizard Rock. It was their deep connection with the audience that sparked something inside me and told me, you can do this!

Until the whole room sang 99 Death Eaters together as one, I’d never experienced such a sense of community in a music scene. There was no division between bands and fans; we were a wizard rock collective, friends bound together by our love for Harry Potter, singing lyrics to which we could all directly relate.

That night, I met my fandom family and found a home in Wizard Rock. One might even argue that, on Evil Day, Swish and Flick was born. You can imagine what an honor it was to perform at Evil Day 2 in 2009, coming full circle.

 

 

It has been more than a decade since Evil Day, so some of the details have been lost, but from what I could glean from memory, photos, and archived messages, this was the lineup, in no particular order:

Performances by: Draco and the Malfoys, Lauren Fairweather of The Moaning Myrtles, Celestial Warmbottom, Nagini.

Open Mic Performances, including Camie Heller, Toujours Pur

Costume Contest

Harry Potter Trivia