3: Summer 1991

The summer of 1991 was my favourite raving year. We went to a few outdoor  raves and i had my first E at Perception – The summer celebration. It was a disco biscuit but if i’m honest i think i bought a bob martins worming tablet. it was a huge brown pill and nothing happened for ages. I was sat under a dance platform when my head had a little wobble; this must be the rush i thought, so i jumped onto the platform and started dancing, but that feeling passed and nothing else happened. Gutted! That pill cost me £20 so iwasn’t very happy about it not working but i couldn’t afford to get another one, i had to make do with a bottle of poppers and a bit of draw. Not brilliant. My mates had the good sense to buy some love doves before we went so they had a lovely time. Me and a mate wandered up the front and saw a chance to get on the stage so up we ran and danced on the stage for a bit. I walked across the speaker stack and it was fine as long as you faced forward, any turn of the head and my eardrums got bettered by the massive volume. Isn’t it funny the things you do when young? I still suffer with crap hearing now thanks to 20+ years of dj’ing. It was a great night and i loved the venue but this would be a different story at the next rave there……

That summer, Raindance done their indian summer tour and we went to Jenkins lane, Barking without tickets and spent all night trying to jump the fence. If you ever went there you would know the venue is surrounded by some kind of industrial estate so getting in was tough. When i say tough, i mean we didn’t manage it. A load of lads a couple of hundred yards away stormed the fence and got in but we got there too late and security stopped us. It wasn’t a completely wasted night, as i sold 100 pills and 2 ounces of speed. The next one was at Long Marston again. We got there nice and early, again with no tickets. My mate and i went off and sold all my drugs, except for a few wraps of speed and put the money in the car. I got stopped by a gang of lads who asked me if i had any speed, i pulled 4 wraps from my pocket and a lad grabbed them and they walked off. I tried following them and to get my money but i was outnumbered and cut my losses. We decided to jump the fence and hid in the long grass till no security was around, and without warning my mate legged it, climbed the fence and got in, but i was too slow. Pissed off i walked back to the car on my own. On the way i looked down and saw a ticket for the rave just lying there! Happy days! I joined the queue and as the person in front of me was being searched i remembered the 4 wraps of speed i still had in my pocket. After quickly shoving them into my mouth i got searched (passed) and walked up to the ticket office. I handed in my ticket only to be told it was a fake. I was put into a caged off area with other people who had been unlucky ewnough to have paid for their fake ticket and took the speed out of my mouth. Soggy. i managed to sell one to a lad i met in that cage but the other three were too wet, so i ate 2 and saved one for later. After an hour or so of watching people in the rave having fun, a security man came and told us we weren’t getting in, and escorted us away again. This was turning into a nightmare now. There was about 20 of us without tickets and all thoroughly dejected. We sat around smoking spliffs for a while then decided to storm the fence en masse. We all hung around and waited for the nearest guard to get out of view then made a mad dash for the fence. Instead ofbowling the fence over, we climbed over and this time i was successful but in the chaos i gashed my hand open on the top of the fence. We all ran in and i split off from the main group and ran into the tent to be greted by a sight i wasn’t expecting; i was backstage! Deciding to bluff it out i calmly walked onto the stage and started to have a dance till i realised my hand was pissing blood. I made my way back into the crowd, wandered outside and found St. Johns ambulance and got myself seen to for the now profusely bleeding hand. There was a lad there who had obviously had a few too many pills and was rolling around and gurning like a mad ‘un, the paramedics must not have seen this happen before as they were very concerned, i just thought it was funny and that he looked like he was having a marvelous time! Freshly bandaged i made my back into the rave and found my mates, telling them of the fun and games i had getting in. By now i had came down from the speed and was feeling a little groggy; my hand was sore and the music had turned all housey, not my cuppa tea that night, so after an hour or so i left, got back into the car and fell asleep. That was the worst rave i ever went to but my bad luck wasn’t over. We stopped at motorway services on the journey home and i went off and fetched 3 pots of coffee. When i got to the table i put the tray down and sat down, picked up two pots of coffee to hand to my mates. Unfortunately i hadn’t put the tray fully on the table, so when i lifted the two pots, the one left on the tray spilled into my lap! Hard boiled bollocks!

I never went to Long Marston or another Raindance again….