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Update: 11:05 p.m.

Just before 11 p.m., a marching band showed up on Capitol Hill, pulling the crowd away from the dance music.

Then, from a few doors down, someone began blaring Fleetwod Mac’s “Don’t Stop”, and the crowd peeled away from the marching band.

At the center of the throng was a double-decker pro-gay marriage sign, with a third sign taped on top. It read: We Made History.

Update: 10: 40 p. m.

(Video by Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Mike Darr and Brad Trenary, of Capitol Hill, were getting ready to go to bed when they heard the music coming from 10th and pike and decided they had to check it out.

Together for three decades, they were “kind of choked up” at the strong early lead of Referendum 74, the same-sex marriage measure.

Mike Darr, right, and Brad Trenary celebrate on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Maureen O’Hagen / The Seattle Times)

“We’ve been waiting 33 years for this,” Darr said. “It’s incredibly moving. This is about love, the right to be loved. It feels so validating.”

“I’m glad we lived long enough to see this,” Trenary said

By 10 p.m., throngs of people had begun pouring out of Capitol Hill bars and onto the streets, starting an impromptu party in the middle of 10th and Pike.

Christina Jewett, in red, and Caitlin Clark, right, celebrate in the streets in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood after President Obama was re-elected. (Photo by Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Dance music carried the mood as men climbed one by one onto thumping speakers to dance.

As one dancer removed first his scarf and then his shirt, the crowd roared its approval, waving green pro-gay-marriage signs, sipping cans of beer and letting out random screams and howls.

Victory for the state’s same-sex marriage issue, Referendum 74, seemed so close. But it was hardly the only reason folks here were dancing.

Some of the celebrants sipped booze out of paper bags; others smoked marijuana.

Dave Monrreal, 32, said he was drawn to the festivities by three things.

“It’s about Obama’s re-election; marijuana is legal and everyone can get married, which is more in line with what the Constitution says,” he said.

“You wouldn’t be on the hill if you didn’t believe in all three,” said his friend Brenda Zugina, 25.

Kort Haven, 26, said that the passage of gay-marriage was “gigantic.”

“It’s something that’s going to go down in history as one of the biggest moments for civil rights in this generation,” he said.