Knackered from the events of the Mayday march, we headed north to hideaway at a friends place in Kentish Town. A few hours chilling out came to an abrupt end with the telephone call we’d been expecting. We had a destination and a purpose once again. It wasn’t long before we were behind the wheel of the 7.5 tonner heading for Wanstead Common in East London, not too far from the newly familiar neighbourhood that had seen us evicted from the cold winter roofs of Wanstonia.
It was pretty much dark when we got to the trees of the Common, to find cars and trucks parked all over the place and were guided off the road into the forest. The buzz that greeted our arrival was enough to bring a smile to our tired faces, as were all the offers of help in setting up.
Its pretty hazy now but we got the rig going on the back of the truck once again for a bit but after some problems with the PA, and the arrival of a couple of other rigs, including the wicked Desert Storm CF from earlier, we decided to knock it on the head and use our generator to power them instead.
To provide light I got up into the trees with a load of festoon lighting and strung that up around the place. This big black Merc truck had turned up purpose built to house a rig, it had an amp rack bolted in to the back of it to keep the amps permanently in place and air cooled. The speakers came out on either side of the back doors and the decks sat on the back doorway with Dj outside, back to the crowd. Our music was generally pretty fluffy. What they played was definitely not.
I was in the back of the Merc checking out the amps when everything was finally wired up. There was a geezer ready with his records on the decks and as the generator fired up and the power came on to the rig and the lights pure noise exploded into the night and the assembled crowd went mental in unison.
It was like a flash going off down a dark tunnel so all of a sudden I could see. Trash that fucker trash that fucker trash that fucker trash that fucker was the screaming line that opened the tune. Hard gabba that I’d scarcely ever heard before and definitely not at volume close up. It was more like a mosh pit in the crowd at a punk gig than any rave I’d been too. Loads of people in black, pierced, tattooed, with big-soled boots and shoes going mental the instant the music started. Beautifully mutant.
We made some connections that night. The Spirals were doling out these golden microdots that looked like shimmering eye make up if you crumbled them between your finger tips. In the morning there were lakes that you couldn’t see in darkness and a beautiful sunrise, despite the music it was properly tranquil, nobody came to complain and there wasn’t a sign of being busted anywhere. Literally everyone had a go at filling a bin bag afterwards too.