Yeah, so there was this magical moment of six weeks in some summer in the 1990s where we threw illegal raves in a Chinese Restaurant on High Street.

Simon Kong

The Rave Scene

In the mid to late 1980s a wave of psychedelic and other electronic dance music, most notably acid house-music and Techno, emerged and caught on in the clubs, warehouses, and free-parties first in Manchester in the mid 80's and then later London. In many ways what would become known as the Rave scene, was influenced by the Northern Soul scene which throughout the late 1960s and through the 1970s and 80's had involved large groups of mainly working class kids dancing all night to rare US soul records. When Margaret Thatcher's policies in the late 70's lead to the closure of the UK's textile industry in the northwest, suddenly large mills and warehouses became empty and unauthorized parties were held in them. The first warehouse parties in Manchester were organized by the group The Stone Roses back in 1985, when to get around the licensing laws they would play a gig and book a line up of DJs under the disused arches of Piccadilly train station. These parties were then advertised as an all night video shoot, and the kids who bought tickets for £5 would have a 1p piece sellotaped to the back as their fee for being extras in a video shoot, thus for several months the forces of law were kept at bay.