Party Vibe

Rave: The party that never ended

The Nineties rave scene died when it became both illegal and commercial. Or did it? There’s a rustling down in the forest. Owen Adams digs out a torch and a map…

Published: 01 September 2006

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article1222979.ece

“Wouldn’t it be nice to get on with your neighbours? But they make it very clear they’ve got no room for ravers…” It was 1968 when the Small Faces came up with that immortal couplet in “Lazy Sunday”. Four decades on from amphetamine-fuelled mod all-nighters, thousands are still going raving, much to the chagrin of landowners, farmers and countryside-dwellers who suddenly find views besmirched by a sea of unwanted humanity and their peace and quiet wrecked by a tortuous, relentless barrage of robotic rhythms.

This weekend no doubt hundreds, even thousands, of revellers will descend on an old quarry, disused airstrip or farmland somewhere for a guerrilla music event, sometimes called a teknival, just as they did in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Last weekend, police clashed with those at “free parties” in Essex and Gloucestershire. Are we experiencing a rave revival, as many are claiming, or did it never go away?

After the Castlemorton rave – in May 1992 a super-sized rave took over the approach to the Malvern Hills, and Castlemorton Common, in Worcestershire, for seven days and nights and civilisation rocked on its axis – the police were jumpy and even the tiniest parties were pounced on. Then, in 1994, the Criminal Justice Act came into being, expressly banning the playing of music with “repetitive beats” and gatherings of more than a handful of people. With “new age” travellers and rave revellers becoming the twin folk-devils of the day, a massive swathe of youth subculture was politicised almost despite itself.

At the same time, dance music was increasingly given radio airplay time, the Ministry of Sound spearheaded a rise in superclubs and the reign of the superstar DJs began. But while their influence has now waned, the DIY peer-to-peer free-party scene has flourished. Clubs and officially sanctioned festivals were always regarded as too restrictive and too expensive for comfort. At a free party, you may have to take your shovel down to the woods rather than sit on a chemical toilet or spend hours going in circles, sometimes fruitlessly, to get there. But parties are worth it not because of the flouting of the law, but the desire for free association in a non-confined environment.

In recent years many have moved to a more tolerant climate for partying – Continental Europe (France, for instance, permits two teknivals to happen each summer in the north, and two in the south) – and many with rebellion-fatigue have drifted away from the UK scene, or just got older. But it never died. For party co-organiser Rick (most people on the scene today will only agree to talk to the press if it’s strictly on a first-name basis) who attended Castlemorton and now helps out with the Bristol-based crew DMT, the free-party scene has barely dipped, but because of the police operations “the scene had to go more underground, and the parties had to get smaller. But these days the kids all want to get their own rigs and be a part of it, and the numbers are swelling.

“We regularly do parties and we try not to let them get too big, and not attract too much attention. It’s fine if the party is in the middle of a forest and there’s no one around, and everyone cleans up after themselves. You might get one copper coming down on his own, and we promise to be gone by noon the next day and we get a bit of leeway. In Hackney, you’ll find a warehouse- or squat-party every weekend but it’s proper hard-core, with gangsters robbing people. I’d much rather have a nice time in a field.

“The police seem to be getting a bit heavier, though, and finding more ways to take our kit and stop the parties. But this scene isn’t going to die. If anything I’d say it’s going to grow in the next five to 10 years. More crews are linking up with each other to put on bigger parties, with five to seven rigs.”

Cat-and-mouse games with the forces of law and order continue to be regular occurrences. “We usually find out where it’s happening about an hour beforehand,” says Michelle. “There are websites you can go to, but we usually call a hotline.” A free-party veteran for the past 15 years, Michelle continues to rave on without a pause. “They’re not really called raves – that’s a bit old hat,” she says. “We just call them free parties. You get them pretty much every weekend, as long as the weather’s OK. More often than not, you don’t see any police. If there’s enough of you already there, they can’t do anything about it. If they’ve managed to close it down, people just go elsewhere.”

The happy hard-core that people were dancing to in 1992 long ago mutated into gabba and other faster, more intense forms, and the progressive-trance genre evolved into more sophisticated psy-trance, but essentially the song remains the same. The Orb encapsulated the rave experience in “Perpetual Dawn”, and the KLF made “3AM Eternal”, and the sentiments of both remain relevant. The party goes on.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article1222979.ece