1. Boy, does it sound good: During the August 31 party with recently reunited house duo Deep Dish and British DJ legend Pete Tong, I left my earplugs in my pocket for the first hour. The Funktion One sound system truly sings inside the space.

2. It’s all in the lighting: Even with the deep house soundtrack, you’d expect the lighting guys to assault your retinas. But Life’s pros appropriately matched the wattage with the darker vibe. At times, I had to squint to see the aerialists and dancers—which just added to the mystery. Even the hazy club entrance was evocative.

3. About those dancers: They were either posing rather than dancing, or looked stuck in a K-hole. Dancing on beat shouldn’t be a tall order, though the lack of twerking warranted a brow wipe.

4. Given a wide berth: Even with a high occupancy, Life’s layout allows for reasonable human motility, which means none of the usual bottlenecks. I don’t think my shoes were stepped on once.

5. Keeping to the beat: Life brass had said Sundays would skew more slipstream, and its first operational weekend bore that out with Tong’s subversive nu-house and Deep Dish’s techno-groove swirl (and LA opener Jordan V’s own deep thumpers). It was a peak-hour coup I can’t wait to see repeated.