Drum N Bass Artists Stage Illegal Rave On London Underground Carriage!

This is fucking rado. London acid city!

Big up Hary Shotta innit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F6Dhimg4DQ

 

Love It........Good Clean Harmless Fun.......Nobody Gets Hurt.......Nobody Gets Offended.......



Cheers Glen.

 

Aye not a bad publicity stunt. Never heard of Harry Shotta before. Now I've heard of him.

Went to a few good drum and bass nights in the London area, to be honest shamanic trance or detroit house is more up my street but I don't mind DnB. It's more gangsta and freaks me out a bit, but there is a lot of good music out there of that genre, and this is some of that.

No too keen on them sucking up to the police at the end, I mean obviously it was going to happen eventually. I think they overdid it a bit, but probably didn't want to get charged with breach of the peace. You can't really blame the police for doing their job there, but their systematic clamping down on ilegal raves that's ben going on since the early 90's is not something to be grateful for.

 

I Think They Did The Right Thing When The Police Moved In........The First Officer Was Smiling And

Polite.......The Raver Was Polite Towards Him.......And Everybody Walked Away Smiling......

Win...Win...For All......



Cheers Glen.

 

Oh they are all smiles and easy going when you are cooperating with them, but if you maybe have a problem with them taking away your civil liberties then it's often a very different matter. You don't always see this side of the London met, I can tell you that from experience. They knew the stunt was being filmed and chose their officer with that in mind.

It doesn't usually go down so well when it's cops vs illegal raves in barns out in the countryside where folk have travelled long distances for a night out popping pills and having a good time, and hurting noone.

Sure you know about the riots in the 90's...

Kind of makes his comment "we love the police" sit not so well with me.

Not saying they have the right to stage a dance a party on a public transport vehicle, but you know.. if a group of people want to organise big rave in private place somewhere and take drugs then that's their right. The police have systematically clamped down on all of that for as long as I've owned a pair of clubbing shoes, and the state continues to impose more and more counter effective nanny state laws such as 3am curfews, no drugs and you have to smoke outside which means half the people are usually standing outside socialising so if you are a non-smoker you're missing half the people. Further to that the council in Glasgow just shut down the legendary Arches nightclub because one person died of a drugs overdose, an incident that was most likely caused by prohibition in the first place. The Hacienda in Manchester has been closed for many years, and Sankey Soaps just shut last year. They also shut down Fabric in London recently, but the organisers managed to campaign to get it reopened. As one of them said in a radio interview recently, the conservative approach to club culture in this country has resulted in the whole scene being reduced to a fraction of what it could be as many people involved in the scene, including a lot of the good DJ's and artists have all decided to fuck off to Ibiza, Goa, Barcelona, Thailand, Indonesia etc.

So in that respect, fuck da police!

 

https://timeline.com/photos-britain-illegal-rave-180ba1bedbab

 

My guess is that this is a publicity stunt and they knew the cops would close it down after a while.

But I'm all in favour of more of this kind of thing. Reminds me of the glory days of the old rave scene years ago, even if D&B is my least favoured kind of dance music. Always liked house and trance a lot more.

The criminal justice act (1994) put an end to most of the illegal rave scene in the UK, and took away a few more of our rights and freedoms.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/part/V/crossheading/powers-in-relation-to-raves

 

You ever go to any of the Return to the Source nights Bill?

I used to go them in Manchester, and in London. They used to hold them once a month somewhere in North London, can't remember then they moved to Brixton Academy. They were pretty fucking sick... but I was always too tired after a week 9-5ing, then I'd wake up too early on Saturday morning and be too tired to enjoy it and have to stay out all night until it finished at 6am and get the tube back, and of course scoring some hash was always a problem too. All the doormen in Brixton were black and a complete bunch of dicks as well, you had to hide your stash in your shoe on the way in and they used to threaten me and allsorts.

One of them caught me skinning up in the ambient lounge. "I strongly suggest you put that away" and walked off. So I quickly finished the job and headed down into the smoke filled dance hall and sparked it up...

But apart from that the DJ sets were tribal, I miss those nights. When I was still in my 20's, still had the energy for it all.

 

No - been to many other raves and parties though, but not really in recent times as I'm not up to it these days.

I was older than most of the ravers I used to meet at events, never really got into it all until the 90s when I was well into my 30s. When I did though, the rave scene helped me to turn myself around from what had been a shitty time for me - got divorced and became a single parent, lost my chances of pursuing the course I was doing as a mature student, generally got a bit down and had a feeling like it was all over for me. The whole experience of the rave scene really helped me to move on.

I still remember the excitement of discovering all that new music, and the many really great nights I went to. I think it maybe helped me to avoid falling into grumpy-old-man syndrome, and my daughter was impressed that I liked the music and that it cheered me up.


Back in the 90s used to go to underground parties in the Forest of Dean, which were about the best nights I recall. Tried various club nights such as Synergy, Megadog, Tribe of Frog and others, and a few illegal events miles down forestry commission tracks in mid-Wales.
Furthest north I ever went for a rave was Morcambe Bay - driving back down the M6 the next morning heard the news of the death of Princess Diana on the radio. Seems like a long time ago.

 

I used to be a member of a site where all the members went to raves together. We never had anything like this, but there were parties where the permits weren't adequate for the show and the party got shut down by the fire marshal.

Drum and Bass was totally a thing when I started partying. It was Dieselboy, Dara, and Ak1200... there would be a massive and they would have a PlanetoftheDrums stage and those three performers were the main attractions. Around 2010 or something dubstep became more prevalent. By that time I had stopped raving and the website whose members I had partied with was all but inactive.

Very cool thread.

 

Last big rave experience in London for me was a big warehouse do in Acton. went as part of a big group, peeled off with two mates to head to the tube station to meet another friend, came back to see a girl we knew on the floor in hysterics, place was trashed.

A gang had raided it with hammers and Pepper spray, fucked up the bouncers, chucked some kind of smoke grenade or cs stuff inside and then mugged and beat up everyone who ran for the exits. Two good friends of mine were injured, one with broken ribs after a kicking on the floor and one girl who got a glass bottle thrown and smashed on the back of her head.

Some dealer had been kicked out/not let in by the bouncers so he came back with a fucking army of cunts to back him up and they just rushed the bouncers and overwhelmed them.

sort of killed the enjoyment of it for me. Not been to one since. Real shame, I used to love squat raves as a teenager.

There was a sick one in Stockwell run by a blind dude and some kind of hippie collective, had my first ever proper drug experience there, probably the best night out of my life.

 

Dieselboy is one of my favorites! PlanetoftheDrums played at a stage when I went to EDC little less than a decade ago, I don't think AK1200 was spinning that night though.

Was the site ravelinks?

 

I did a couple of hippie rave festivals in Wales in 2000 and 2001, but they were on some farmer's land who gave them permission, at least that's what I was told. Smoked peace pipes with a bunch of hippie travellers, those were the days.

Maybe you were there too?

Can't remember where exactly it was, but there was some forestry commission land there I'm sure.

 

The events I went to in Wales were prior to 2000. I can't remember the name of the place now, but it was in the Brecon Beacons. Deep in the woods, about 30 mins slow drive on rough tracks to get there. Lots of midges.Only went up there twice. The music was mainly hard techno - not my favourite, but the overall scene was good. Mixture of travellers and weekenders. I heard a few years later that the place got raided by the police eventually.

These days, I'm completely out of touch with the whole scene.

 

This one was also about 30 minutes down a rough track, second time I went my mate was drink driving and we ended up down a 45 slope and nearly turned the car over. There was some stuff going on in a forest, but the forest there was fairly minimal and the main stuff was going on in a small valley along a burn. They were projecting stuff on to the side of a steep hill and folk were turning up and pumping out music from their cars. As far as i know it wasn't illegal and there was no program, just turn up and put on some tunes.

It was fucking cool though, I remember walking through a forest, hippies everywhere and someone was banging out what sounded like Swedish porn music something.

It's really fucking sad that there aren't more things like this happening. Even in Holland there are free festivals everywhere all year round, all funded by the government. They have a different attitude there, a happy popuation is an obendient population. Over in the UK though we're not allowed to have fun, and the entire pubs and clubs scene has been ruined by over regulation.

You want a festival in the UK? £300 is the minimum shoestring budget for that these days.

 

This is a situation that has got worse and worse over my lifetime. Back in the distant days of my youth, in the 70's, the old free festival scene was still going strong. Just ordinary hippies with no commercial agendas organized events such as Windsor and Stonehenge festivals, as well as others. I went to a few of them - Stonehenge being the biggest. Another world back then. 'Free' meant free. People would do free food. People would even give you little bits of hash if you didn't have any money. And things got done like digging toilets and so on. No body made any money other than a few dope dealers.
In the 80's things changed, and different kind of people moved into the festival scene.The atmosphere changed from love and peace and lets gets stoned and chuck our clothes off to something much more darkly anarchic. As I'm sure you know, Stonehenge festival was eventually ended when the police savagely attacked the so called peace convoy in the famous battle of the bean field. The idealism that had led to the free festivals was pretty well crushed under Thatcher. The idea of anything being 'free'was antithetical to the spirit of Britain in that epoch. And remains so even now.

My experience of pay festivals is not that great. I did some work for a festival venue a few years back and got to go to quite a few. These are absolutely nothing like the old free festivals used to be. It's all about money in the end.

 

No, it wasn't ravelinks but I posted there a few times. It was 4ravers. Really tightnit community for a time.

 

Yep. They take your money and kick you out at Eleven o clock.

I remember WOMAD in Reading in 2001, what a festival! If you cast your mind back it rained constantly for about 10 months until the start of July that year, then summer arrived and the weather was perfect, flags were flying and the music from all over the world was out of this world, beautiful.

And they had a trance arena, bit of psychedelic trance and all that. Only the local council decided that they wanted this part of the festival to be a little bit more removed, in the background, away from the children. And so it was all held inside a warehouse just off the site, and even though there was plenty of space for everyone we all still had to queue for over half an hour to get in.

Then there's Beltane in Edinburgh, up Calton Hill, the pagan festival for May Day. In the old days, it used to go on all night. People used to strip all their clothes and dance naked round the bonfire. Now, there's still a bonfire but due to health & safety concerns no-one can get anywhere near it to even get a heat of it because they put up barriers around it. Then at eleven o clock men in orange jackets go round herding everyone out of the park. And you've got to pay to get in. The year I went though I climbed up the hill from Leith Walk. Never went back, watered down version of what used to be a great festival, and one where you were almost guaranteed to get laid. Water and fire don't mix. All the true pagans of Edinburgh hold their own private festivals now and the main event is just a fucking glorified pantomime/tourist attraction.

The Big Chill, if it's still going, is not a bad paid festival. Stunningly beautiful place. I got apprehended by security that time, but as luck would have it he turned out to be a good one and let me keep my hash. He was looking for people selling magic mushrooms, oh my god can you imagine that.

 

Went to WOMAD once only. I didn't like the way they cleared everyone off the site at night into the camping area. Can't recall what year I went - it was late 90's. Ravi Shankar played there. The electronic music side of it sounds like what you describe, off to one side and indoors.Some good stuff on there though.

Heard good things about the Big Chill from others but never went.
My festival going days are over. I'm glad I was a hippy years ago and went to those old fests. Glad too that I discovered the rave scene later on. These days I just don't have the energy, and what energy I do have is directed toward other things.

 

I lived in Reading when it was WOMAD so I just went home at the end of the day, I did see everyone heading to the campsite though and having drum parties and stuff and wanted to stay.

I bought this skunk cookie for £2, a friend recommended me and I wish I had bought the lot you know because I was tripping off my nuts and I gave some to other friends and that was it. If I'd known it was going to be so tasty. I don't know what was in it, maybe a little heroin or MDMA who knows. Used to get some real nice stuff in those days, stinky green and fluffy polm that sent you into another dimension. Shame things have changed, for me anyway regarding the quality of hash and grass I can get a hold of.

It's nice that this thread has sparked a discussion about this, it's nice to share memories of good times. Let's not lose hope that maybe things will change for the UK and we can live free and happy lives not chained to system.

I'm happy to just go walking in the country with a little whisky and some nice hash, and maybe some tunes on my iPod. Can't even do that.

Anyway...

I suspect this stunt was staged and the police were in on it. The copper that came in at the end, I recognise him from somewhere. I think he might be an actor.

Just saying, maybe I'm wrong.