Party Vibe

I understand exactly what you mean – there are a few decent crews here but what I meant was all the positive activism bit has gone out the rave scene and now it is becoming like a cheapo commercial nightclub on someone elses property. I am in my early 30s and have been involved with raves since 1991..

A lot of problems are indeed due to wider society and class divisions, and a big stubborness and fighting spirit in the UK. Whilst the fighting spirit can be good as channelled positively it makes us do brave and daring things (such as getting in a disused warehouse), here in Britain we do not have a solid tradition of working together to achieve things and often our aggression is turned on ourselves (like the arguments you see on other boards, or the constant problem with fighting and gangs at raves).

I get the impression in France and Germany youth culture has more direction to it, and young people often go to a “summer camp” thing where they go out to the rural areas and organise stuff together, study nature etc, set up things in tents (obvious good skills for later life with teknivals!)

This we do not have in the UK. Often we have to teach the younger people many things about equipment etc which they learn quickly, but what they have not always learned is how to work together, or solve their differences without conflict which can make our rave situation look worse.

Some people also do not think of or even care about the effect a rave has on the rest of the area (traffic, rubbish) or worse still see it as an opportunity for crime and anti-social behaviour.

Here is an example ; in my area there is a nice bit of land called the Ridgeway which is public land because it is the oldest road in Britain.

You can get to it from many other normal roads, and it is wide enough to park vehicles on and there are adjoining fields. Obviously this is a good rave spot; and since 1991 there have been occasional parties there.

the area around the Ridgeway has a lot of kids who have time and money to put together rigs (there is a lot of nice rig kit in Britain as you may have seen when UK crews attend teknivals!)

But what happened increasingly is that due to internal disputes, some crews would not work with others or share party-spaces.

So you ended up with 5 or 6 small raves every weekend in some areas sometimes within just a few km of each other instead of 2 or 3 larger ones; and of course all the locals were angry as this way there was more noise and rubbish.

so now there was a backlash and cops are more aggressive about stopping these parties (before they let them happen) – a guy from one crew got an ASBO law used against him and I expect the whole area will be locked down this summer 🙁

but even without cops and locals there is now a problem with fighting/violence at raves, kids fight with each other and have big arguments with their relationship partners in the middle of raves (IMO this should be sorted out at home, not brought into public!) also girls get hassled by blokes. Every rave I have been to in the last few months (apart from a couple) I have seen arguments like this brewing up somewhere..

if raves carry on like this then the rest of society will think they are no better than commecial nightclubs which at least pay license fees to offset the damage they cause to people ,,,,,

we need to make them better somehow so they can survive…

there are still parties which are comparatively violence-free; outside London free partying as a whole is far less likely to result in personal danger than attending licensed venues – but we always need to be vigilant, and promote a culture of non-violence.

Otherwise there is a serious risk the problems which screwed up London’s scene will manifest themselves in the wider SE – a gang/fighting culture was tolerated and accepted, now its impossible to have a party in London without violence including the use of weapons – to the point where some crews have been forced back into the licensed venues and other have been forced out of London.

It starts off with vandalism, then goes on to robberies in dark corners and eventually gangs trying to “take over”. It has been a problem on the scene since the early days, even in licensed venues but until recently wasn’t as prevalent at “free parties”

Another nasty thing is harrasment of girls – this didn’t happen as much in the 1990s – now people regularly hassle girls and if they are with their boyfriends they threaten the boyfriends. People I know have stopped going raving because of stuff like this, after all its as bad as a normal townie venue…

Maybe its because there are actually more raves and crews about than in the 90s ppl perhaps take these events for granted – only a few years back a rave was such a special occasion that few people would dream of fighting at one!

I wasn’t a goody two-shoes in the 90s – nor were most of my friends (many of whom are now in rehab, HMP or dead) and we did (particularly on comedowns) do a lot of things which were anti-social and criminal – but never at raves – there was a culture of respect at these events; you didn’t cause trouble, girls/women were respected, stuff like DJ’s record boxes and rig kit was also respected….

It is down to people who attend raves and make them happen to improve things – nowadays due to busts and surveillance partylines aren’t given out as widely as they used to be and most scum types are too thick to use computers, so how are they finding out about these events?

Its highly unlikely “local chavs” are going to roam about an industrial unit often some distance away from a town or city just on the “off-chance” something may be happening…

The average rave crowd by and large is pretty decent though – so perhaps some of the people at raves just need to choose their “friends” a bit more carefully…

some lads look up to “wannabe gangstas” who “fight” their way through life (or more realistically intimidate people with weapons and numbers because they are cowards on their own) – they need to realise instead what pathetic individuals most of them are and leave them behind in the townie venues where they will either eliminate each other or end up in HMP…

do you have transport? still a few good ones round our way…

the main reason I still do it after all these years is that there is still a core of good friends I have made from the scene – Its worth taking a break though if its getting to the stage where its not fun anymore! I actually stopped raving from 2002-2004 because things were going downhill but kept in touch with my friends (I also met a few new people as well because I had more spare time – and got a new job which improved my morale etc…) – and eventually started partying again as our local scene picked up briefly (but then got too big and the clampdown started)

I think people do need to become less competitive/bitchy/stressed when actually doing raves (free or licensed) – there’s a lot of posing and machismo now (I think it is perhaps also due to the gender divide and society becoming angrier)

but raves are supposed to be fun, not more stressful than your day job – and we can’t afford not to work together when people like cops and residents groups are working together to stop our events…