https://www.thebuttermarket.co.uk/event/immature-ravers-xmas-family-rave-in-the-cellars/
This reminds me of when I doing my on-the-ground research into the 2-Step / UK garage culture, around 1999. I came across this flyer for an event that provided a creche. .So you could go to the rave and bring your toddlers and small children with you and they would be left in the care of a qualified child-minder.
I'll never forget the kicker to the sales pitch: "So there's no excuse, bring the fucking kids".
And that's why the piece ended up being called "Adult Hardcore" - the idea was that the teenravers of 91-92 were now settling down, starting families. (Another bit of evidence: seeing a guy behind the counter of Rhythm Division in E3, bottle-feeding a baby nestling in the crook of his arm, backdropped by a wall of UKG white labels).
But this is different - this is going with your kids and raving together with, albeit in the dance music equivalent of those hardcore matinees for under-21s that used to have in the USA.
Raving en famille? That really is the absolute end of the generation gap.
I wonder if this an outlier, or whether there'll be more and more events like.
C.f. rock festivals today, which are real family affairs. You hear of a teenager who'll go to the festival with their parents and they'll all stay in a tent together. Or groups of schoolfriends going to the festival, along with all the parents - the kids going off on their own, the parents likewise socializing mostly with the other parents. Regrouping back at the tents.
A friend of ours did that with her daughter and her daughter's friends and the friends's parents. Each generational grouping would wait until the younger / elder grouping was out of sight before getting their drugs out.
Back in the day, there would always be the occasional "rave granny" on the scene. Often in the profiles and photo spreads of people at events in Mixmag, there would be someone over 50 featured as a curio.
ReplyDeleteNow, many of the original ravers are in their 60s (including your good self). When I saw Underworld back in 2019, it took a while to register that Karl Hyde was 62 at the time.
There is a notion in Chinese culture of "Four generations under one roof". Perhaps that should be a tagline for a multi-generational rave?
Yes the rave granny - or grandpa. There's one photo in particularly recall of a gurning gramps decked out in rave regalia.
ReplyDeleteTook me 6 seconds to find on t'internet - https://lifeabirdseyeview.com/2016/04/one-foot-in-rave.html/
not the old lady at the top but just below, old bloke pulling hand-shapes with ravers gloves on
Just a small claim: https://tempo.substack.com/p/fatboy-slims-right-here-right-now
ReplyDeleteThat's a great piece.
ReplyDeleteWell, you'll get no argument from me about the immensity of Norman C's peak moments.
I prefer Better Living Through Chemistry to You've Come A Long Way.
But he's really a singles artist isn't he - the idea of sitting through a whole Fatboy Slim album doesn't compute for me.
A great DJ too
There's a tune he played once in New York that I've been trying to work out what it was ever since. I think it had "Soul of Man" scrawled on the label but that path led to nothing I could recognise. A epic rolling 67-into-97 type track, very faintly redolent of World of Twist's "Sons of the Stage" but even huger.