WRFL celebrates its 30th birthday with a weekend of shows and exhibits but first it has to rest its collective head a little. “There’s so much to do,” said events director Sasha Tomlin, as she laid down on her couch and turned off her lava lamp, “I need to lay in the dark for a minute.” She started to snore within seconds.

Everyone who volunteers at the station is excited about the festivities but some of the older DJs and staff already feel a tad exhausted. “I can’t wait to see Washed Out,” said DJ Kyle Rafferty, who just turned 46. “Because I feel that way myself sometimes. Plus I lived in Portland for seven weeks. Wrote the first chapter of my unpublished novel there.”

A significant segment of the listener fanbase has aged right along with the radio station. Mary Clemenza bought two vegan energy drinks from Good Foods in anticipation of the coming all-nighter. “They don’t last for five hours,” she said of vegan energy drinks, “because of the lack of protein.” She hopes that one of the bouncers at the Burl might have an extra set of earbuds for her “friend”.

Fellow fan Billy “E-Jet” Ewes was sporting his The Infected tee-shirt as he impatiently waited for his kids to get home after school. “I got to take them to soccer and then their grandma’s. Then I’m getting Hemingway drunk. It’s the only alternative left.”

“Thirty years is a long time,” said DJ Andrew Byrne as he sat in the station with a pair of earbuds wrapped around his faded Green Day neck tattoo (he got it in 1996, he assures us, so it’s vintage). “The kids these days don’t even know what DJ stands for. But I’m changing, too. Turns out I like Steely Dan unironically.”

Then he put on a deep cut by James Taylor and went to get another shot of red-eye espresso. He plans on being home in bed around 11:45 pm.