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A lot of people knew about the Mutant Dance party happening in Wiltshire, and I knew it was going to be big. MD organised the meeting point for 8pm in Amersbury public car park, near Stonehenge. I was still in Reading by this point and I wasn't going to go that early - I knew a few people with phones, so I thought I'd leave them to get to the site and let me know where abouts it was happening.

About 10pm, I was given directions to Peartree Hill, I found it on the map and got everybody together. We finally left Reading at 10.40pm. As we approached the A303 I got a call saying the police had stopped the party. Using various sources I've managed to put together what (really) happened. At about 9pm the convoy of 30 cars left the car park, police knew that something was happening. They were in large numbers around the area, due to the Summer Solstice and Stonehenge being so close. The convoy made it's way up to Great Cheveall and Peartree Hill. I'm not sure if the soundsystems had actually setup by now, but as the convoy approached the location, riot police were already there and started banging on the windscreens of several cars. Word got around that everyone was to go back to the car park in Amersbury for a re-think.

Now about this time, I turned up at the car park - I was a bit worried about the amount of police present - about 10-15 riot vans, but still steamed it past a policeman trying to stop any more cars entering the car park. Parked up and headed over to a crowd that had formed around some bloke trying to let everyone know what was happening. There was a new location, but it had to be spread around by word of mouth otherwise it would be stopped pretty quickly. A huge cheer came from the crowd - which had now swelled to about 60-70 cars - and the police smiled on...

I headed back to my car, and waited around for 10 minutes, before several small convoys left the car park. I tagged on the end of one, and tried to keep up with them heading west on the A303. We turned up the A350, drove up there for a while, before turning round, as we had missed the entrance to a dirt track just off the road. Finding the track we headed down it. Along each side of the track were traveller vehicles - lots of them. After about a mile or so, we decided the convoy wasn't moving anymore and parked up (next to an overturned van). We chilled for a bit and let everyone settle down a bit, before heading down the track to a soundsystem at a crossroads.

The soundsystem, Darkstar, had an ex-miltary tent filled with a 5K speaker system and had covered the front with camo netting. Quite a nice setup. Acid Tekno was played all night not too heavy, but very danceable. The travellers weren't too happy at first about a small invasion of ravers, but after half an hour or so the atmosphere changed and everyone was pretty friendly.

In the meantime, the original Mutant Dance party soundsystems were having a few troubles of there own. Mutant Dance tried to get their system into the site, but had problems with the travellers, so I think in the end they gave up. Dionisus & Stinky Pinky soundsystems were escorted by the police out of Wiltshire. Ooops headed down to the New Forest and setup, Dionisus headed down via Berkshire to attend that party - unfortunately too few people and the police forced the party to end.

Back at Darkstar and about 200 people are in attendance with loads of people on the dancefloor. Nightstorm were there, as were a few of the usual suspects. Two police meat wagons tried to drive down the track, before seeing how many people were actually there - and decided it was probably better to get the fuck out of there before a riot started. I watched the two police vans scrap the side of their vans against the overturned van...hehehe...most amusing. At about 3am, it starts to rain lightly - this didn't put anyone off from dancing... but after a few hours of constant rain the crowd thinned out a bit. At 5.30am I made my way back to my car and start to make a move home. We tried getting back on to the A303. Unfortunately there was an accident - a truck had crashed into a coach carrying school kids. We stopped at a garage up the road - which a police range rover was sat in....the police were inside the garage. I filled my car with petrol and kept my head down in the shop. I wasn't in the best of states! We eventually made it back to mine for about 7am. Total miles covered during night.......159 !!!!!

Turned out to be quite a good night in the end. Nice warm up for Glastonbury ! It was a shame that Mutant Dance had so many problems in their way - don't let it put you off doing more parties in the future!!!!

Bugs






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