a sort of end of season party review type thing, some details may be a bit jumbled, I am after all writing this from memory over 6 months of parties!
Despite Thames Valley Police attempting a “zero tolerance” policy on unlicensed raves on the Ridgeway (a large track in Southern England which is apparetly the “first ancient highway” or something like that), our local crews still managed many parties this summer season…
At our first multi-rigger, 30+ TVP officers in full TSG formation (riot squad) turned up; only to realise they were heavily outnumbered and retreat shortly afterwards and leave everyone to carry on…
All the usual suspects turned up at one of more of these places :
phantom/void, storm/surge, somatek, project mayhem, tunnel crew, underdog, and appearances from london rigs including PaniK and TOM/TOL – apologies if I’ve forgotten any others!
This summer a new crew has been about in the Thames Valley; the “wrong” rig (wrig?) – randomonkey (who joined the infamous band of thames valley ravers) late last year purchased a motor van and a genset; along with Pip, those from phantom/void who didn’t go to Europe this year and the remainder of the sokaid kit he set up a chill out rig / bar described as a “more sick and twisted Itsy Bitsy”.., (this comment may have been after we let Bird play on the rig with her infamous 80s selection) – if you haven’t heard this come along to one of the thames valley parties 😀
my enduring memory of this is the first outing which started off in
Basingstoke and relocated to cholsey downs; where I ended up dancing with a young lady from the area to Birds 80s selection (at one point couldn’t help feeling that I was in a school disco again!) – people were having a brilliant time in the summer heat (it was one of the few decent summer weekends!) and even the cops were friendly (one seemed to particularly like the 80s stuff).
Some of the girls even put on a k-heads gymnastics display(!) – and were joined by Discopete, who was turning cartwheels on the grass (for those who don’t know him he is a chap in his mid-thirties and of fairly stout build, who you wouldn’t normally associate with athletic activities 😉 )
there were other episodes of wrongess too – this time in hampshire for a moot.
originally this was planned for the ridgeway, but as we arrived we heard the unmistakeable sound of a Eurocopter EC135 (their tail propellers are supposed to be quieter, but sound like a big extractor fan) overhead, bawling out the Section 63 “please leave the area” message through the “skyshout” loudspeakers as the same cops from last time politely suggested “you lot have partied the ridgeway nearly every weekend; why don’t you go into another county this time?!) – so we did!
The party relocated to Beacon Hill in Hampshire – a convoy as far as the eye could see and 9-10 rigs in total, with thw wrong crew tucked away in the forest… much fun was had by all throughout the night and into Sunday morning.
On sunday afternoon the cops turned up and apparently seized kit of one crew who left early; there was a minor scare when some peopel thought the site was being stormed by police horses; but it turned out to be civillians pony-trekking; who had feared our rigs would scare their nags, and asked the bobbies to escort them…
Further down the path, other cops had set up no less than 3 levels of checkpoints, plus a mobile canteen and a comms vehicle – and were making it quite clear they wanted this party to wind down by sunday afternoon “or else” (and there was plenty of “else” about to deal with it!)
But despite running the gauntlet of all this lot (from friendly bobbies, to less friendly bobbies and the TSG who had come specially from portsmouth) most people seemed to get back OK (although no doubt the old bill got plenty of info for their computers) – there may even have been some firemen there which was strange – AFAIK nothing was on fire…
the crews planned another ridgeway party but found the place was blocked off big time with earth mounds etc; looks like the councils finally had enuff..
And so ended the summer season in our area – some good parties, I had a brilliant time this summer (and even managed to ride my bike to the ones which were near my city); a few “hairy” moments with cops spreading paranoia (TBH they were actually quite lenient though!) and party people fighting amongst themselves on site (why?) but still a good summer despite the sometimes iffy weather..
a summer to look back on with fondess as the autumn winds start to blow – and the attention is turned to the disused urban buildings 😉
GL/Reading/September 2004
