Every now and then, events transpire to turn a fun night into an epic night.

Some sort of X-factor enters the equation, kicking the night into high gear, a runaway train of adventure. These are the nights where you find yourself sitting on a foreign couch surrounded by friends, watching the sun rise before you’ve even been to bed.

I’ve always referred to this as having an Athens Sunrise.

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This past weekend, I wasn’t the only person who witnessed the sun’s blossoming somewhere along the line separating Saturday night from Sunday morning.

Sound Tribe Sector 9, or STS9, was in town, finishing up the last of three sold-out shows at the Georgia Theatre. Any band that can sell out the Georgia Theatre – especially with our current financial crisis – is impressive. STS9 sold out three, with scalped tickets ranging from $50-$100 being sold in front of the Theatre.

Scalping wasn’t the only type of underground economic activity. As with any prominent band that can be described with the broad term of “jam,” STS9 brought a small, but vibrant lot scene.

Shakedown Street, the Grateful Dead-inspired name given to any impromptu parking lot market outside of a jam show, set up shop in the Bank of America parking lot next to the Theatre.

Very serious STS9 fans follow the band from town to town, living out of their cars and selling everything from homemade posters to smoking pipes to crystals to make ends meet on the road.

“These crystals are vital,” said Lindsey Boone, who had been following STS9 for a few weeks, selling crystals and jewelry. “The years of compression by the earth to make these things make them amazing for channeling energy.”

Of course, there are other things for sale on Shakedown Street. All one has to do is listen with the right kind of ears and be discreet, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, screamers and laughers are available to take your night in whatever direction you feel.

“That’s one of the problems with the scene now,” said Boone. “The drug side can be fun, but so many of the newer members of the scene treat this as just a chance to get as messed up as possible. Ultimately, this is about the music.”

The Tribe, as STS9 fans are often referred to, take care of their band. Sound Tribe was happy to return the favor by throwing a post-concert party after the Theatre closed at 2 a.m.

Turn off from Atlanta Highway just past the mall, and you’ll find yourself in a sort of pseudo-warehouse district of Athens. Typically, a warehouse isn’t the place you want to be in the wee hours of the morning.

On Saturday night, however, this was not the case – STS9 was throwing a massive after-party at Athens Arena for anybody who wanted to come.

Upon walking into the Arena, the air hits you with a warm, wet smack on the face. The Arena, with standing room for more than 1,000, was filled with smoke, and the entire warehouse seemed to vibrate along to the beat.

The cavernous space had a strange radiance about it, being lit by both the intricately psychedelic lighting rig behind the stage as well as the numerous glowsticks and glowstick-clad revelers flying around the crowd.

Athens Arena had been open for a few hours once STS9′s set ended. Just as the first of the party shuttles arrived, transporting merrymakers from the Theatre to the Arena, the party kicked into high gear.

Bassnectar, the free-form electronic music project of Lorin Ashton, made a special trip from the West coast to be co-headliner with Pnuma Trio. As always, Bassnectar did not disappoint, dropping beats that were nasty and infectious.

“Normally I start kind of slow and build up,” Ashton said over the microphone early in his set. “But you guys have been at Sound Tribe all night, so I’m going to start it hard and heavy.”

After Bassnectar ripped his hour-long set apart, it was Pnuma Trio’s turn to take the stage at around 4 a.m.

As the night slowly slipped into late night and pre-dawn, people finally succumbed to exhaustion, and the Arena slowly thinned out.

Thinning out is a relative term here; by the time I left at around 5 a.m., you still did not have a bubble of personal space within 15 feet of the stage. The party was still rocking, looking like a time warp had lifted the whole venue back in time to the glory days of rave culture.

The shuttle was starting its rounds back to the Theatre, taking this once raging circus of a party home in a much calmer, subdued state. Taxis encircled the Arena, offering lots of safe options home.

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So much of life is based on standards for behavior. More often than not, these standards are there as guidelines to ensure the health and happiness of people and society.

Yet, these standards can be very rigid, and if somebody doesn’t quite fit the mold of how they should act – how they should dress and groom themselves, the job they have or the lifestyle choices they make – they are judged.

I personally feel that, deep down on some level, every person has that bacchanalian urge to get covered in body paint and play with glowsticks – at least in a metaphorical sense.

That’s why I love the jam scene so much: they embrace that side of themselves – the inner prankster who celebrates that child-like pursuit of fun. Saturday night, there were people in this town having the time of their lives.

And once you have one of those epic nights, once you see that Athens Sunrise, the following sleep is all the sweeter. Babies don’t sleep this good.