Leaving the safety of Norwich, I go see my squatter friends in their 19 story high rise squat in Hackney. They get the location of the party from their own contact and around midnight or so, we go find a taxi.
We tear across London in a cab driven by an old skool DJ with a pumping sound system who enjoys a smoke of skunk weed. His car has very good breaks and first rate road holding. We get to the Westway motorway and see the building ... oh, oh oh.
First, this party is no secret. Its in a very respectable area, one of the better examples of 60's architecture it was a pre-privatisation British rail office complex built into the motorway junction on the side of a hill. We enter under the motorway which is on a flyover bridge, push past the barricades (this party isn't going to be shut down), pay 3 quid "donation" and go in. The police are very conspicuous by their total absence.
Darkness and pounding techno echo around a vast stairwell. A huge spiral staircase which winds up about 5 stories to the first office level. The staircase heaves with people, I go explore.
Essentially three levels of techno, jungle and stuff. The techno level is the best IMO, in particular one huge room with Pendulum, a pumping system with a very nice sound. Something like ten or more systems are kicking off all told.
The main problem is the lack of lights, there was one small strip to light the stairway and the systems had lights of course, but beyond that, we had to live with the light coming in through the windows from the motorway outside. The other problem is no running water, or toilets, although that didn't seem to upset anyone. Well, it was a London squat ...
The view in the main techno room was breathtaking, a massive room which eventually filled up with a mass of people, the big widows giving a backdrop of the Westway motorway with people dancing in silhouette, I spent a lot of time in here.
The place hadn't been cleared out, the offices were still furnished and there were huge metal storage cabinets all over the place. In the Pendulum room, ppl were dancing on these high above the dancefloor, some had already collapsed into a twisted heap of metal. Actually, I suspect the unstable ones had been collapsed on purpose and the remaining ones were actually quite firm, they didn't fall over anyway.
As the night progressed, ppl got more and more trashed (no shortage of anything of course) and got to work on the offices. In the 1980's this place had been given a re-fit with suspended ceilings and such, that went very quickly.
I was watching as a couple of kids were ripping the ceilings down, one kicked out, slipped backwards and smashed through a window - we were several stories above ground level remember - anyway I caught him and pulled him back. aaarrrggghhh.
Later I find a body, still breathing but out to the world lying in a heap of trashed office furniture. There's no lights of course, so by the light of a ciggy lighter I give him a quick check, roll min into the recovery position and leave him, not much more I could do I guess.
I find another staircase - total darkness - which leads up to the roof another 6 or more floors up (this place has spires!) I go up and there are a lot of ppl up here but its dark, then the sound of a big window being smashed and another. I come down.
In one room the music stops with a flash of sparks as the wires get ripped from the ceiling, I suspect the crew is too wasted to repair it, so that system gives up, at least I didn't see it come back into life.
Daylight comes eventually to show a scene of utter devastation in what was once a very smart building. Walls covered in graffiti, broken glass everywhere, trashed offices. Everyone is off their heads, running round going wild, madness, utter madness. London squats have this darkside, be warned if you've never been to one ...
I go back up the spire - actually a water tower. The view from the top is mind blowing, the whole of west London layed out like a map, a lot of people up here running around, looking over the edge, shear drops through broken windows ....
Around 9.00am and I'm finished. it's been a long day (I was in work at 7.30 in the morning!) and the body was saying "sleep", I had to go. The party continued of course but I really had to go. I guess it would have carried on for at least another 12 hours at least. It was still going at 4.00pm when my friends crawled home anyway.
So I leave and suddenly I'm in the real world again, clean people, walls not covered in graff, windows not smashed, reality, it takes a bit of coming to terms with.
Derek
