Ive always been obssesed with electronic music since pacific state (808
) hit my walkman in the late 80's. I was 2 young to participate in the golden age of rave music but finally cut my teeth at the age of 16, i come from Wolverhampton and during the early to mid 90's it was one of the best towns for hardcore music with 2 of the best nights in the country,pandemonium and quest (where i popped my e cherry. 1996 finds me permenantly installed at the sanctuary in milton keynes, didnt miss a helter skelter for nearly 4 years with a few dreamscapes and pure x's thrown in for good measure..
Moving with the times i started getting into the superclub sounds of the millenium, from homelands to slinky, gatecrasher to cream to passion at the emporium, house trance and techno become the order of the day, living on birminghams doorstep i was like a pig in muck with my regular visits to godskitchen puctuated by the occasional atomic jam and sundissential, nights that were going off like a week old jam rag in 90 degree heat. by 2003 id started using smack to cope with the weekly pillwhizz hangovers and as i slipped into my addiction it was almost as if id burst the bubble myself, and by the time of the great piperizine pill plague it was almost game over. Between ourselves and nearby shrewsbury, we managed to keep a healthy dnb scene going and during a long clean spell i managed to co promote a sucessfull old scool night in wolverhampton for 2 years (we managed to book grooverider on his first nye after leaving prison in dubai), but of course im once again back on the smack with no regular access to decent md or whizz, dancing shoes covered in dust.
Whats brought this mornings rant on? the local press has reported that gatecrasher birmingham is to be no more, and while they never hit the heights of their sheffield parties its sad to see the last of the (now) old guard dissapear from the high street. yes i know your all going to tell me that its all about europe and free parties but i never saw the rise of the superclub and the mitsubishi revolution as a bad thing as at the time dance music ruled the uk, and in terms of youth culture the uk ruled the world. I guess the main problem is that im a hopeless smackhead hurtling towards middle age and that i should finally grow up.
Saying that tho one more good night at the old boogey woogey would go along way towards blowing away a few of the thicker cobwebs. Im just a hopeless sentimentalist at heart.
RIP uk dance scene - 1987 -20XX or whenever
Stee (with two ees as one was never enough)
Thank you so much for posting this! I love dance music and have been raving since about 2001. I agree with you on the loss of the 'big room euphoria' experience wholeheartedly. My first ever rave was Sundissential North. I remember walking in there (having never been to a hard house event before) and thinking 'fuuuck me, this music is hard!' and being mind boggled by all the sweaty gurners dressed in red and yellow fluff!! Fortunately though it didn't scare the pants off me like it did some people I know and I have been clubbing ever since. I loved the big room atmosphere back then and I used to travel up and down the country to attend them.
My favourite venue of all time was Camden Palace - I remember going to Frantic presents Chemistry there in 2003 and having my socks completely blown off when I walked through the main doors onto the balcony, looking over onto literally thousands of ravers on the dancefloor. IIRC Rob Tissera was playing K90 - Red Snapper....that is one time that the euphoria was so strong I couldn't hold back my tears..I looked at my mate (18 stone bodybuilder) and he was crying too...!
I also liked Goodgreef at Phillips Park Hall in Manchester - that was an odd (but awesome) venue. I remember the MASSIVE bed at the back of the main room with gary gurners sprawled all over it...(WTF!) RIP Phillips Park Hall.
I was also VERY sorry that the Emporium in Coalville closed down as I only ever made it there once and that was for the final Storm Fright Night before the venue closed. It baffled me as to why exactly they had to shut the Emporium because they never had a problem filling it unlike other clubs such as the Sanctuary in its later days (I was a little too young to attend the Dreamscape/ESP events like the OP - the lucky (old) bastard!) but I did go to Hardcore Heaven once or twice. RIP Emporium and Sanctuary :-(
I think it is definitely money that has killed the scene for the large part because it must be expensive to rent those places as some are listed buildings etc, clubbers don't want to pay in excess of £15 a ticket any more and many more smaller and cheaper nights have literally taken the business off the big promoters. I think the exception to the rule (in hard dance particularly) are the events run by Tidy, particularly the weekenders. They are great fun, I went to about 6 or 7 of them about 10 years ago and I plan to go to the next one in 2015 with a load of my old crew.
Insomniacz did a few events at Magna in Sheff which were good but they struggled to fill the venue. Magna is heeeyowge! and the venue were apparently dicks so many events got cancelled and they just scrapped it altogether in the end.
Sundis was my spiritual home until the GHB epidemic became so severe that clubs were being forced to cancel nights due to the pressure on the councils and 999 services. It was common to see people being carried across dancefloors by bouncers and dumped on the pavement outside. I for one am glad that little epidemic is over but it does show that drugs have also had a hand in killing the rave scene little by little.
I tend to stick to my local area when clubbing nowadays because there are so few decent big nights to choose from that are worth the bother of travelling to. I do plan to return to Camden Palace for another Frantic at some point (or Koko as it is now known - it'll always be Camden Palace to me though!) but I don't know when.
Thanks again for posting this, been on a right trip down memory lane! Goood times. Oh and you're spot on Stee - 2 are never enough ;-)
....! There and Subway, my two brum favs...!
Had some amazing times in there, tis where I first tried ket, hoofed a big line off this guys hand ( I think he 
) as it is something different from the smaller local nights. Different vibe, different people and you usually have to travel to get to them. (cannot beat messy coaches full of ravers). It is good because it IS a novelty to be away from your familiar 'home' club scene and like anything (except recreational drugs) if you do it often enough the novelty will wear thin. 
