Monday, May 23, 2016

the eternal return of illegal raves / "stacking"

broadcast by Vice on the anniversary of Castlemorton  -  that magic number 23 beloved of Spiral Tribe -  here's a doc on the resurgence of Britain's illegal raves




Karl Kraft, who alerted me to this doc, says he doesn't think there's really been a renaissance - that the illegal-rave scene have been bubbling away in a more or less steady state since the late Nineties, with some areas being particular strongholds - including East Anglia, where he used to live, which for a good while in the 2000s had the fiercest and most full-on illegal-rave scene in the country.



He tells me of a thing called "stacking"  - a sort of dancing scrum -  " this bouncy group dance which is like a Ketamine thing I think, because you're all leaning in on each other, propping each other up"


KK also tells me about the time a rave mob besieged a police station in Great Yarmouth in protest against the arrest of individuals involved in staging a rave

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wouldn’t necessarily associate it with ketamine use. I started raving before ket became rife and stacking was prevalent then (early 2000’s). It was certainly one of the aspects of raving I enjoyed most. Despite the bruises obtained from being crushed against the rig (speakers), or being whipped in the face by sweaty dreads. The sense of unity that came from loosely coordinated, shoulder to shoulder, energetic jumping, was a thrill I actively seeked. Hard trance was (imo) the preferred genre for it, as the climatic build ups and interludes allowed you to try and catch your breath before another intense session. It also really warmed you up in the winter months.

Anonymous said...

Sorry forgot to mention I was also part of that east anglia scene.