So if you found yourself inside the Big Room at Score on the inaugural Salvation Sundays, smack dab in the middle of a dance-happy, hands-in-the-air, comely crowd, you might have thought, “What?  Did the war end?  Is the recession over?”   There was such a sense of celebration, so much joy on the floor, that you had to wonder if a container ship of happy pills had grounded ashore off South Beach.  Why was everybody so happy and having so much fun?

Well, for one thing, there was Abel in the booth.  Abel in a particularly ebullient mood as he mashed up bits and pieces of favored tracks from the days of Salvation and every year thereafter, mixing “Killing Me Softly (With Your Song)” with “Put Your Hands Up” and “Get Your Hands (Off My Man).”  And the boyz were loving it: singing along with Mary J, “G-rrrl-friend… She’s a hundred percent…”  That was Abel: one hundred percent ON.  He opened up his musical heart—and let it SING!

As one adorable couple said to us, “We didn’t know what to expect tonight… It’s INSANE!”  Perhaps they were too young to remember Salvation, but the magic and mayhem of that beloved club was all over the place.  The crowd was a showcase of chic shirts, with sequins a primary motif, and vintage Salvation tees, unearthed from storage. And there was Salvation doyenne, Power Infiniti, sheathed in white fox, stole and arm muffs, as she (and her back-up boy dancers) vogued her way through Madonna’s “Give It 2 Me,” working a tiny go-go box with as much showmanship as if she ruled the entire stage of Radio City Music Hall.

So many beautiful boyz in such splendid shirts, unpeeling on the floor to reveal those South Beach bods that Salvation made famous.  And boy, South Beach was in the house!  There was the King of Salvation, Hilton Wolman, of course, with his Queen, Mel and son Myron, and Winter Party chair Chad Richter, with Leo the Lionhearted, and Flavio Nisti (sans Erika Norell!), and CLICK hedwig, Omar Gonzalez, fresh from his marriage in front of Miami Beach City Hall, and Task Force miracle worker, Alex Breitman, fresh from New York, and Michael Superman in killer Bermudas, and the ever-bodacious and vivacious Tracy Young (Oh, that girl! That girl!), and the ever-ebullient Equinox trainers Luis and Alex, and recent b’day boy Thomas Barker, with photog Dale Stine, and a grinning Parzham from Great Party Pics, and Kidd Madonny in killer sequinned shades, and on and on and on, as Madonna would say—while presiding over it all were Score's consummate hosts, owners Billy and Luis, true gentlemen both.

The party had soul: the soul of South Beach, that fabled playground, that sandbox to the stars.  And Abel kept pumping out the hits, from “(Don’t You Want) My Love” to “Push the Feeling On” and “You Don’t Appreciate Me.” Oh, but there was no question that Abel was appreciated and everyone was feeling it.  Tracy trekked up the narrow staircase to the booth to pay her obeisance to the man—and there was Abel loving Tracy and Tracy loving Abel—and everyone loving everyone.  Perhaps Hilton's Mel put it best when she said, “It may not be Salvation, but it has the same heart.”

When there’s a need in South Beach, maybe a void of some sort, something missing, something not quite right—then South Beach gets a party.  There’s a party to make it all good again.  The history of South Beach as told in great parties.  Or as Abel put it, “I Just Can’t Get Enough,” “(I Need A) Miracle,” and “We Belong Together.”  Amen to all that, and to Power performing another show, this time clinging to a support column as she belted out Deborah Cox’s “Things Just Ain’t The Same”—before gliding over the crowd, their upraised arms supporting her all the way back to the stage.  An act like that takes faith: that the crowd is there to support you.  And yet, with that bunch on the floor, with all those hands already up in the air, and that mass of smiling faces, was there ever any doubt?  It was a party about supporting community: a community that plays together and knows that music is the real religion.  And it was fitting therefore, when Abel plated Hilton and Mel’s favorite, “Shackles” with its uplifting lyric, “I just wanna praise you.”

Praise be to Salvation Sundays at Score—and to all of us who know the true power of joy.