Class of '88

by Wayne Anthony

  In the corridor my partners were fighting with three more geezers. We retreated into the office and searched for more weapons. Armed with two knives, a knuckle-duster and an iron bar, we stepped back into the arena. The group was heading our way, with knives, bricks and lumps of wood. Like wildcats trapped in a corner, we ran towards the attackers, but Linford Christie would have had trouble catching up with them. We couldn’t.

  The security showed up shortly afterwards. We told them what had occurred and off they went. The team returned empty-handed, which I was glad about really because the intruders had already accepted defeat. If our doormen had got hold of them it could well have got very messy!

  The partnership between Genesis and Sunrise was a major success and we’d achieved our objective of staging the biggest and best Acid party in the world. Even NME voted our New Year’s Eve event Best Party of 1988. We had three black bags of dosh, which we split fifty-fifty and everybody – Tony and us – was happy.

  We decided to promote a series of events together, with the next one on the following Saturday. However, the bubble burst on the Wednesday when the local police chief paid us a personal visit at the warehouse. He told us the building didn’t belong to the person who had leased it to us. Even worse, the geezer was a squatter and had no rights at all. The chief wasn’t arrogant about it but simply said we couldn’t have any more events there and we had to clear our stuff out by the following week. He even apologised for bringing the bad news. We were shocked but knew there was no chance of continuing at that venue. It was time to hit the road.

  GENESIS SUNSET: AGAINST ALL ODDS

  Unfortunately, nobody wanted to rent warehouses to promoters, which meant venues were hard to come by. The clubs didn’t have the facilities to accommodate our huge crowds, and the few that were big enough to hold thousands of people closed too early. This left an enormous gap, which had to be filled. We knew that if we didn’t grab the opportunity to stage even better parties than before, somebody else would do it.

  The difference between us and a lot of rival promoters was that we chose safe buildings with a minimal risk of harm for our punters. Some promoters didn’t share our concern, and staged events in derelict warehouses. Once we’d found a site we’d forge lease documents to pretend to cover ourselves legally. One of our workers would spend a day collecting property-for-sale lists and other literature that featured an estate agent’s logo. We never targeted any particular company; we picked the agents at random. Then the typed text was covered with a perfectly cut, blank sheet of paper, leaving the header and bottom exposed. We’d stick the paper down with glue and photocopy it ten times, to allow for any mistakes.

  The blank letter-headed paper was then taken to an old friend of the family, Leigh, who was the only staunch person we knew with a typewriter. It couldn’t be taken to just anyone: we didn’t want to divulge our methods for others to copy. Leigh would knock up a script to my specification. It wasn’t an elaborate blag and got straight to the point. The end product was an apparently legally binding document that proved we had hired the building through the correct channels and stated the exact intended use of the premises for all to see. The lease would read as follows:

  This document is to confirm the use of (Venue Address) as a location for private music-business functions. The project manager is (Name) who represents the (EMI, or Sony, or Virgin) recording company.

  For further details please contact this department during office hours only, or consult the project manager for a full brief of events.

  Yours sincerely, Yours sincerely,

  Special Projects Department (EMI, Sony, Virgin) Manager (Estate Agent)

  Then we’d photocopy the original typed document and keep one on the site of any building we crashed. We claimed The Public Entertainment Act 1982 kept us within the law.

  If someone found a suitable building, we’d offer them a deal. Some promoters called Pasha located a big warehouse in east London, which we agreed to use. We decided to start a membership club and made the announcement on the flyer. We wanted to project a good vibe when printing our flyers, so we printed a short story on a birthday-card-styled flyer. On one side was the hype and on the other was the event information. We decided to call our promotion company ‘Young Minds Entertainment’. The hype read as follows:

  The Genesis chapters began in a small deserted London street, where three young minds pulled together in the hope of bringing a new light to the world of entertainment, calling this form of entertainment Genesis.

  For the support and encouragement from you, the people who make everything possible, we are truly thankful. We offer to you our very own exclusive limited Members Club and promise the struggle will continue!

  Summer of Love

  Winter of Joy

  Year of Genesis

  We went to view the warehouse and found it was OK to use. The building was U-shaped. The River Thames flowed past a big yard where there was a docking bay for small boats, and mounted on the wall was a royal crest. The section we planned to use had already been broken into so all we had to do was bring our team in to set everything up.

  It was 5 p.m. and dark as our vans drove towards the site entrance. A geezer appeared and opened the gates. We had four trucks of equipment and a big van full of soft drinks. After the last truck drove through the iron gates, they were closed and padlocked. Whoever was on site would have the moody estate agent document, which stated the usual bullshit. Although I’d made up the documents I would never sign them myself so that, if I got arrested and my handwriting sampled, it wouldn’t come back to me.

  Only one part of the building was going to be used, but it could hold 4,000 people. Our crew and the lighting and sound guys had now mastered the art of transforming a venue in a matter of hours, and this was coordinated on site by myself, KP or Keith. We found a secure office upstairs on a balcony that overlooked the factory floor, which by now resembled a high-tech dance arena. The office had no windows and only one entrance.

  The electrics were turned on by a cab driver I’d met while I was giving out flyers one night. His name was WD and he spoke with a slight American accent. I was outside the Wag Club when I was introduced to a chap named Jerry who used to control all the minicabs. Jerry asked me if we needed a cab rank outside our venue, which was a great idea because most parties were held on industrial estates; the nearest cab office was usually at least three miles away – if you were lucky! You’d always end up with thousands of people walking the streets in the early hours of Sunday morning still buzzing from the party. Anyway, Jerry introduced me to WD, who turned out to be a wizard electrician. He gave me all his telephone numbers and said we could call him at any time, day or night. He came to the warehouse, took one look at the fuse box, and within half an hour we had full electricity. Power!

  Before we knew it, 9 p.m. was upon us. The meeting point was outside a warehouse in Leaside Road. We left someone there to tell everyone the party address; our names were so big at this point that we didn’t even need to promote the event. We had a 3,000-strong following ready to go anywhere we told them.

  At all times the man at the meeting point had to keep control of the traffic flow. We had to maintain a high level of professionalism at all levels. If Dibble saw anything getting out of control, they could move us on and block roads leading to the venue, which would make life very difficult. So we deployed more staff to stop cars and give them the venue details. We made small foldable signs that read GENESIS SUNSET MEETING POINT and when cars stopped we’d give them a map and move them on. There were at least ten people doing this around a two-mile radius of the warehouse. A few thousand pocket-sized maps were printed, showing the venue and surrounding area. The map had the Genesis logo in the corner and the full address handwritten on the back, which was a job in itself. My mum and sisters wrote each of them and it took them about five hours.

  The man at the point wouldn’t release any of the maps until he got the word from us. Because this was an illeg
al event, we had to be sure we could scare up an instant crowd. We figured if we had a thousand people inside the building and we fronted the Old Bill as the organisers, there was a good chance the event would go ahead, because the last thing Dibble wanted was thousands of people driving around the streets.

  We made the call and instructed the guy at the meeting point to give out the maps. I asked how many people were there and was told the roads were completely blocked already. The building was secured and a single doorway was used as an entrance and exit. We put a table by the door and prepared to be bombarded by revellers. There were security with dogs on the main gate, to stop anyone driving into the yard. Within fifteen minutes, cars began parking in the streets surrounding the venue. A queue was building up inside the yard of around 800 people. I was summoned to the gate because a chief of police, together with 40 other officers, was standing in front of the gates and stopping everyone from coming in.

  Because of my previous encounters with law enforcement, I half-knew what I could get away with and some of the private property laws. I also knew there was no way Dibble could find out whether we had permission to be there, at this time of night. Armed with this knowledge, I went out to the gate with the confidence of a pop star. Thrusting the moody leasing document into the chief’s hands, I ordered the officers to take a few steps back off this privately owned land. They complied, and I tuned my focus on to the chief.

  ‘My name is Claude Ferdinand,’ I said. ‘I represent Virgin Records and this is a private launch party to celebrate a forthcoming album by one of our artists.’

  The chief closely inspected the lease agreement before asking me why the local police station wasn’t informed of the event. I told him that wasn’t my department and he should take it up with my superiors.

  Right at that moment, fire bells rang out from inside the building. I asked the officer if he would remain there whilst I attended to the alarm. He nodded, and I ran off and around the corner where 12 security men were waiting for me. I told them to smash the bells off the walls and we started with the two in the yard. We were hitting the bells with scaffold poles, hammers and huge steel cutters. As we knocked each one down we’d hear another going off somewhere else. Each one we knocked off was met with a roar of applause and cheers from the queue of people in the yard. To make matters worse, we had to break into other parts of the building that we weren’t even going to use.

  In half an hour we’d gone through around 30 doors and knocked down about 25 red bells. We were out of breath, but had achieved our main objective, which was to stop the bells ringing. Knocking them off was the only way they could be stopped. Otherwise, the police would close the party down, private property or not. It wasn’t as if we exactly had a key to the alarm.

  Calming myself down, I went back around to the police chief, who was impatiently awaiting my return. I apologised to the officer and explained the delay by saying that I held a large set of keys to the whole building and had been struggling to discover which one operated the system.

  I went on to inform him that this was a private event and everyone who entered the premises had to have a valid invite. The police had the road and gate blocked, so people were jumping over a perimeter wall. The chief asked me why they were hopping over the wall, and I said it was because we had an international line-up of artists contracted to appear and the event was not only unique but an historic celebration of the music world.

  ‘So what do you plan on doing with the people jumping over the wall?’ asked Dibble.

  ‘I have 45 highly trained security members on site who can deal with any situation that may arise,’ I replied.

  The chief looked impressed and told me that if I had any problems with gatecrashers I should dial 999 and the police would help me to handle it. I asked him to write his name and a direct telephone number that I could contact his station on. The chief of police took my pen and the clipboard and wrote his details on the moody lease! I couldn’t believe it! My show of confidence had paid off! The blag had worked because he didn’t want to take the chance of being wrong. He’d even signed our fake document! What a result!

  When I walked back into the yard the whole team was waiting for me. We were all screaming and going mad: we’d done it, and the party was on! The fun had already started inside and, when I announced over the PA system that the police had gone, a loud cheer ripped through the building and the energy level gained another notch. Two hours later, 4,000 people were crammed inside and there were another 700 out in the yard. People were dancing everywhere and on top of anything they could find.

  I was spending a lot of time in our makeshift office with Tony and two other members of staff. We were the quickest at counting money and there was a constant flow of uncounted cash in carrier bags for us to count and log on to our balance sheets. We had two of the hardest security team members outside the door and nearby were two other guys from the unit with shooters, who were standing ten yards from the door and watching it like hawks.

  The security team were there to prevent any attempted armed robbery. They would die before anyone took any money, and they looked as mean as fuck. Even though they knew we were paying their money they wouldn’t say a thing to us, not even ‘Hello’. These guys were scary motherfuckers who looked like a tribe of Arnie’s Terminators.

  I was glad they were on my side: I’d hate one of them to come bursting through my front door. The scariest thing about those geezers was that they were very organised and disciplined. They were capable of kidnapping you from under the nose of the woman you were in bed with and she wouldn’t know a thing until the next morning. In a nutshell, they were lean, mean, fighting machines with no regard for human life. Yet the fact of the matter was that we needed a team like this so no one could mess with our money or welfare. They weren’t bullies or horrible to our punters; they were perfect gentlemen and showed respect to everyone who entered the building. Everybody was searched for weapons, then welcomed to the pleasure dome.

  We were in the office carrying out the usual duties: counting money, paying wages and snorting charlie. Then one of the workers knocked repeatedly on the door and when we let him in he went straight into a panic. Sweat was pouring down his red face and he was breathless from running. I tried to calm him down.

  ‘Wayne, I don’t want to panic you, but somebody has just collapsed and died downstairs,’ he said.

  WHAT?! A cold shiver crept up my spine and goose pimples immediately covered my body. I stood there in complete shock and asked him if he was sure of what he had just said. He assured me he was 100% positive and that he had tried to revive the bloke himself but had got no response.

  The hairs on my head and the back of my neck stood on end, my heart pounded and sweat soaked my shirt. I told the guy to take me to the body and told Keith to take the money to the safe house, just in case. So far we had collected about 50 grand and most of it was at the safe house already.

  We walked around the balcony that looked over the dance floor and I looked down at the thousands of happy faces. I felt saddened that someone had died at one of our events, then suddenly snapped out of it at the thought of being arrested for murder or something along those lines.

  Once the Old Bill found out we’d broken and entered the building to stage an illegal dance party where someone had died, a judge would beyond all doubt hand out a stiff prison sentence to the organisers and make an example of us to would-be promoters and drug dealers. I became angry that this person who I’d never even heard of was about to bring our world to an abrupt end. No matter what anyone said, we didn’t ask him to take drugs and he did not take drugs in our company.

  We were making our way through the crowds, our minds in turmoil. Shit, shit, shit, why us, and why now? My brain slipped into survival mode. If the police were brought in we’d definitely get locked up on some big charges. I was left with two choices: call Old Bill or arrange for someone to take the body to a hospital, claiming they found it lying in the street. I’d be pre
pared to give a few grand to the person who took the body there. It may sound callous, but I wasn’t going to prison for anyone.

  We approached a group of people who were standing around. A guy was slumped motionless on the floor. I pushed through the circle that had gathered around him to see what was happening. Kneeling down, I checked his vital signs: there was a slight pulse! I slapped him hard around the face a few times, shaking him, and seconds later he was coughing and breathing.

  He opened his eyes and everybody cheered. A feeling of relief came over me. I gave him a drink of water, and helped him to stand up. You could tell he’d taken an E because his jaw started shaking wildly. His friends were all hugging and kissing us both, but when they calmed down I asked the guy who he was with and he pointed to about ten people. I asked them to follow me to the entrance door, where I gave them their money back and told them not to come back, ever.

  This may seem harsh but this whole scenario had caused me enormous grief and made me think in certain ways I had no desire to revisit. If it wasn’t enough having to worry about Dibble and armed robbers, now we had to worry about people dying because of Ecstasy.

  My girlfriend was a vocalist for an indie band and didn’t really like the music we played at my gigs. However, when I returned home after the east London party she told me she’d never realised how big my events actually were. While she was parked in her car at some traffic lights in Oxford Street, a coach crammed with people pulled alongside her and asked whether she knew where the Genesis party was located. Imagine that: out of all the people these partygoers could have stopped for directions, they choose my girlfriend! Truly, Acid House was taking over the world.