The vulnerability is so important. Remember that this was a very different time, where emotions and vulnerabilities were not as openly displayed as they are now. We were also a notoriously un-parented generation, so what you're seeing in these pics are young people being able to connect in ways that they hadn't been able to do or feel much in the past.
Rave lore- with its PLUR ethos, had not existed before in any way or form. And California's youth culture had been incredibly divided on the basis of class and race. So this idea that you could connect like this with everyone was just so enlightening and refreshing to feel. Society had been essentially telling us to divide, and then under our own auspices, we came together. That's truly one of the most beautiful revelations that I've ever felt. We could truly come together in love, and we'd never be the same.
Ravers of 30 years ago absolutely look like those of today! Which is such a joy for me to witness. 30 years later, it's largely the same. The same intensity, life affirming, open, wonderful world gets experienced by young people now.
Still images were our confirmation that there was a scene beyond that of you hometowns; that we were truly part of a massive global youth movement. I couldn't wait until my copy of URB came every month and I could see these incredible pics of the rest of the rave world.
Thank you for the awesome comment. It sounds like you were here in California for it? And the way you write about it here really gives me hope that we might one day again find ways to bridge differences and knit ourselves together. Everything feels so divided and divisive now, and that's by design as the Plutocracy turn the populace against each other.
I myself was on the East Coast when this first wave was happening, and I was not in a location where raving was available to me. I listened to mixes on CD/MP3 that were shared by the likes of Sasha & Digweed, Moby, and the like, but didn't attend any proper dance parties until the mid 90s, and even then they were dance-oriented house parties, not raves. I often wish I'd been smart enough to be there for the birth of this scene.
I was! I'm from the Bay Area, but also raved in NY and DC.
One of the truly wonderful parts of being a lifelong raver is that the scene is always doing well and doing what it's supposed to be doing. Is it bringing people together? Can it do more of that, in order to meet the current era? God yes, easily so.
You're absolutely correct about this as countering the plutocracy; and the next question is, how political do we need to be?
On the one hand, when social movements identify an enemy and then don't beat them, they fail and lose steam. Hippies and punks did not bring their respective systems down and that caused disillusionment. On the other hand, ravers did not make attacking a powerful entrenched interest a focal point of our existence, but yet we absolutely changed the world for the better. Just keep on spelling out what we stand for (PLUR) and then let society connect the dots.
But this time around, the very people that created our culture as a safe place are under a direct attack, and it is absolutely essential that we stand very loudly against that. Trans are fully welcome. LGBTQ are fully welcome. So are all races and creeds, regardless of immigration status. Promoters need to be more explicit in this.
Stunning review that captures something really fundamental about what changed. That distinction between dancefloors as co-authored spaces versus concerts as consumed experiences is spot-on. I went to a massive EDM festival last year and spent more time watching people film themselves than actually dancing, which felt wierd compared to older footage I've seen. The Christopher Lawrence quote about DJs being in the dark with no spotlight nails it - when did we decide the performer matters more than the collective experience? Tullberg's photogrpahy technique of using long exposures to capture movement feels like the right way to document something thats fundamentally about motion and energy rather than static moments.
“It’s gone from “dance like there’s no one watching” to “dance like everybody’s watching” TEAAAA
What a great review to a phenomenal book.
The vulnerability is so important. Remember that this was a very different time, where emotions and vulnerabilities were not as openly displayed as they are now. We were also a notoriously un-parented generation, so what you're seeing in these pics are young people being able to connect in ways that they hadn't been able to do or feel much in the past.
Rave lore- with its PLUR ethos, had not existed before in any way or form. And California's youth culture had been incredibly divided on the basis of class and race. So this idea that you could connect like this with everyone was just so enlightening and refreshing to feel. Society had been essentially telling us to divide, and then under our own auspices, we came together. That's truly one of the most beautiful revelations that I've ever felt. We could truly come together in love, and we'd never be the same.
Ravers of 30 years ago absolutely look like those of today! Which is such a joy for me to witness. 30 years later, it's largely the same. The same intensity, life affirming, open, wonderful world gets experienced by young people now.
Still images were our confirmation that there was a scene beyond that of you hometowns; that we were truly part of a massive global youth movement. I couldn't wait until my copy of URB came every month and I could see these incredible pics of the rest of the rave world.
Thank you for the awesome comment. It sounds like you were here in California for it? And the way you write about it here really gives me hope that we might one day again find ways to bridge differences and knit ourselves together. Everything feels so divided and divisive now, and that's by design as the Plutocracy turn the populace against each other.
I myself was on the East Coast when this first wave was happening, and I was not in a location where raving was available to me. I listened to mixes on CD/MP3 that were shared by the likes of Sasha & Digweed, Moby, and the like, but didn't attend any proper dance parties until the mid 90s, and even then they were dance-oriented house parties, not raves. I often wish I'd been smart enough to be there for the birth of this scene.
I was! I'm from the Bay Area, but also raved in NY and DC.
One of the truly wonderful parts of being a lifelong raver is that the scene is always doing well and doing what it's supposed to be doing. Is it bringing people together? Can it do more of that, in order to meet the current era? God yes, easily so.
You're absolutely correct about this as countering the plutocracy; and the next question is, how political do we need to be?
On the one hand, when social movements identify an enemy and then don't beat them, they fail and lose steam. Hippies and punks did not bring their respective systems down and that caused disillusionment. On the other hand, ravers did not make attacking a powerful entrenched interest a focal point of our existence, but yet we absolutely changed the world for the better. Just keep on spelling out what we stand for (PLUR) and then let society connect the dots.
But this time around, the very people that created our culture as a safe place are under a direct attack, and it is absolutely essential that we stand very loudly against that. Trans are fully welcome. LGBTQ are fully welcome. So are all races and creeds, regardless of immigration status. Promoters need to be more explicit in this.
Very thorough and informative.
Stunning review that captures something really fundamental about what changed. That distinction between dancefloors as co-authored spaces versus concerts as consumed experiences is spot-on. I went to a massive EDM festival last year and spent more time watching people film themselves than actually dancing, which felt wierd compared to older footage I've seen. The Christopher Lawrence quote about DJs being in the dark with no spotlight nails it - when did we decide the performer matters more than the collective experience? Tullberg's photogrpahy technique of using long exposures to capture movement feels like the right way to document something thats fundamentally about motion and energy rather than static moments.