Class of '88

by Wayne Anthony

  I looked down the dimly lit road towards the venue, which you couldn’t see from where we were standing because of buildings obscuring the view. Dick stepped out from the dark road and I walked over to him. He was a very thorough and decisive man who’d always get straight to the point, diagnose the problem and give you several solutions. He was a very angry person who had learnt to control and manipulate his temper to use it for his own ends. He had a thirteen-stone Rottweiler that he always brought to work with him. If it hadn’t been for his giant size you probably wouldn’t feel intimidated by him at all. Even with his huge build, you might say he was a gentle giant. But this guy had the capability to top anybody in the blink of an eye.

  ‘There’s a geezer back there, standing in the reception, claiming this is his venue because he saw it first. He’s got a pit bull terrier with him and is wearing a raincoat with one hand in his pocket. I can’t tell if he’s got a firearm or not. He says he’s not leaving until we give him some money or he’s gonna ’ave it with us. He’s got a bagful of fliers advertising a party here next week. I’ve calmed him down a bit but he’s still there. Is there any way he could have found out last week where you were having this party, or is he trying it on?’ asked Dick.

  ‘No, there’s no way,’ I replied. ‘Only three of us knew.’

  ‘Well, the only reason we haven’t taken him out yet is so we could talk to you first,’ said Dick. ‘If you don’t want to give him anything or discuss this any further, I’ll just say the word. Everyone is ready to steam him. He’s got balls though, to walk up to ten blokes standing in the reception and demand money with menaces! What I’m trying to say,’ continued Dick, ‘is that if we’re going to do him, then I suggest we do it properly. We’ll steam him, put him in the motor, take him to a plot and put one in the back of his head. Geezers like him don’t just disappear. He’ll be back some time, so we may as well deal with it now and it’s done. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be standing on that door when he turns up with a shooter. I’d rather top him now. It’s down to you: I’ll deal with it any way you want.’

  I stood deep in thought, pondering my reply. ‘OK, I don’t want a mini-war on our hands,’ I said. ‘If his flyers look authentic and if the others agree, give him £500. I’m not doing these parties to kill or be killed. If he’s not happy with our offer, call me on the walkie-talkie. I’ve blagged these parties and I’m going to do them for a good while longer.’

  ‘OK, whatever you say. I’ll shout you on the walkie-talkie.’

  Until Dick spoke to me I had been on a high, and rightly so. The party was rammed with 6,000 people having the time of their lives. I knew I could never live with the knowledge that I had authorised someone being killed simply because they’d believed we’d nicked their gaff. In fact, our own boys would be doing exactly what he was doing, if we found ourselves on the other side of the equation. This geezer was carrying flyers with the warehouse address printed on. He certainly couldn’t have known we were planning to use the place. And even if I’d thought he was pulling a fast one, I wouldn’t have wanted him killed or anything as extreme as that, simply ejected from the premises.

  It was still raining and really cold and I was only wearing a suit and raincoat. I was very pissed off. The policemen were being very helpful, however. By now they were my pals and could tell I was no hardened criminal, just a young entrepreneur trying to make a living in a Thatcherite society. The Old Bill were still waiting for their celebrity autographs, however, so I said Mandy Smith’s limo driver must have taken another route to the warehouse.

  Dick called over the radio and told me the intruder had accepted our offer and was no longer on the premises. Deciding it was time to go inside, I made my excuses and returned to the venue. A cheer went up as I stepped into the reception: the security were in high spirits and so was Teena, who was taking the money.

  The ground level was bursting with energy and people were jumping up and down while the DJ played an awesome set. I made my way through the sea of dancing bodies where people were hugging one another and projecting love and harmony. I stopped in front of the DJ console where Keith, KP and the lads were going for it, gave a thumbs-up sign to the DJ and started to get down. One of my all-time favourites was in the mix: ‘Let The Music Use You’ by Frankie Knuckles. This tune was big and guaranteed to move the crowd to total ecstasy. The whole venue sang along:

  This song is from my heart.

  It wasn’t easy from the start.

  Say, can’t you see, everybody is dancing with me?

  So let the music use you.

  This record does something to my heartstrings even now: it’s the absolute bollocks. Looking around the warehouse, at the far end of the building, amongst the smoke, I could see a single green light, and I headed towards this starlight glow. Somehow, the nearer I got, the further away the light seemed to be. All around me I could hear voices talking about this fascinating aura that couldn’t be reached. I continued my mission to catch this light and began running towards the wall until WHAM! The solid wall remained firm, and I bounced off the concrete bricks and hit the floor!

  Somebody was holding my arm. I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t react and I could barely see through the slit of my eyelashes. Suddenly green hands were everywhere and trying to pin me down. I grabbed hold of the nearest fingers and sank my teeth into them. There was a loud scream straight away.

  When my eyes opened fully, I saw loads of people wearing bandanas and smiley faces telling me to let go of the hand I had in my mouth! I released my locked jaw and was helped to my feet.

  Shaking my head, I said, ‘What the fuck was that?’

  One geezer said, ‘Not to worry, I’ve been standing here an hour and seen at least 10 people do the same thing. My eyes are hurting because I’ve been staring at it for such a long time.’

  I apologised to the guy whose hand I’d bitten and asked if he was OK. I must have bitten him hard because he had prominent teeth marks on the back of his hand, between his forefinger and thumb. I got some money out of my pocket, gave him a fifty and sent him to our on-site paramedic, Charlise.

  Charlise was a fully qualified nurse who loved to party and understood the Ecstasy rush because she’d been there herself, many a time. She’d normally take the casualty out into the fresh air, sit them down and talk them through the overwhelming rush they were experiencing. If it was more serious she was even prepared to take patients to hospital and stay with them until they were given the all clear, although we’d never had to go to these extremes. Charlise was worth her weight in gold and of great value to the team: it made us feel a lot more secure to have a paramedic on site.

  The warehouse was still rammed at 10 a.m. but enough was enough and it was time to close: we knew we shouldn’t push our luck too far. Keith and Tony went to the safe house to split the money and I planned to meet them later that night after some well-deserved kip. I’d been awake for two days and was in urgent need of some rest. So once everybody had left the building and was safely on their way, I let the security go home. I had arranged for a couple of mates to keep watch on all the equipment in the warehouse and so had to wait half an hour for the duo to arrive.

  Changing into jeans, Timberlands, jumper, padded jacket and a Stussy cap, I felt a lot warmer. Lack of sleep and too many class-A substances were beginning to take their toll. I felt a bad cold coming on and knew my health was about to deteriorate rapidly. I sat on a dance podium with a parachute wrapped around my shoulders for the extra heat and took a bag of charlie from out my pocket. Sticking a fifty pence into the bag, I snorted the pile up one nostril, then repeated the process and did the other side.

  Suddenly, the tranquil silence of the old building was shattered by the sound of an over-revving van. A police van with its headlights on full-beam was heading towards me. I slowly got up and stepped off the platform, leaving the gear wrapped in the shiny parachute material. Behind the van was a marked police car and three or four officers run
ning on foot.

  The police took firm hold of each of my arms and said that I was under arrest. I asked them what grounds they had and was told breaking and entering for a start, and that by the time we got to the station they’d have thought of a few more charges. I told them I was a rigger waiting for the equipment vans to turn up and that none of the stuff was mine: it belonged to my boss, who was at home sleeping. Dibble said that everything in the building was being confiscated and taken into police storage. If a receipt was produced for each item, the equipment would be returned. They arrested me, together with KP. I was taken to the local station, which I figured must be where the chief and squad from the previous night were based.

  Suddenly I felt very vulnerable. Here I stood, in a police charge room, surrounded by untold plodders who had somehow discovered the truth about the venue. I wasn’t about to start shouting my mouth off, telling them I was the organiser and they had no right to hold me. Fuck that! I stuck to my story: I was a rigger, I worked helping the lighting and sound technicians attach fixtures to the walls and I was promised £25 for a few hours’ work. One of the Old Bill asked me if it was true that the DJs earned ten grand a night, and I said I could guarantee him that no DJ in the country was asking or getting that kind of money. Dibble clearly thought that the DJs controlled the parties and made all the wonger! I played ignorant and said that I really didn’t know.

  The police locked me in a cell for ten hours, which I spent worrying whether the evening shift of Old Bill would be the same coppers as had been on duty the night before. If it was, I would be in deep shit, and I panicked internally at the thought of being made a scapegoat and given a prison sentence to warn off other promoters. I hoped I wouldn’t get recognised. How could I have been so stupid? Why the fuck did I stay in the warehouse in the first place?

  In the evening the heavy steel door unlocked and opened.

  ‘This way please,’ said a plodder, pointing towards the charge room.

  I immediately noticed that the desk sergeant wasn’t the same one as earlier. Shit! The shifts had indeed changed! The room was very lively with loads of officers standing around chatting to one another, so I stared at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. The desk sergeant informed me they weren’t pressing charges, and I was free to go. He was just in the process of handing back my possessions when the flat-cap I had successfully blagged the night before walked into the room. Trying to make a quick exit, as I reached the door I heard the chief’s voice.

  ‘Excuse me, don’t I know you?’ he said.

  ‘Who, me? I doubt it. I’m not from this area.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘George Norman.’

  ‘So, are you going to do any more parties in this area?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you. I’m only a rigger.’

  ‘Well, can you please advise the organisers that we are on full alert and will not tolerate a gathering of this kind again? If you do return to any local industrial estates, you’ll be met by a riot squad. Am I making myself clear?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know them personally. I’ll tell my boss, and he’ll give them your message.’

  ‘Yes, you do that. Now get out of here, and don’t come back.’

  ‘Goodbye, and thank you,’ I said.

  Keith picked me up and we drove to meet Tony and a bunch of lads. They bought me a crate of champagne and an ounce of sniff to soothe away the blues. When I told them I hadn’t been charged because they thought I was a rigger we rolled about laughing for hours: ‘Top fucking blag, mate!’

  We stayed up all night (as you do) talking about ways in which we could get a licensed legal warehouse, or even a later club licence, which would only bring us in line with the rest of Europe. The licensing conditions in England were positively medieval and were in urgent need of review. To have an 8 a.m. licence application granted to dance-party promoters was nigh on impossible. Not only that: property owners who leased us their buildings were threatened with imprisonment or the loss of their licence. A stern warning was given to landowners who even dared think of giving us the use of their property.

  What chance did we have against a government that didn’t understand what was going on? The Acid House dream wasn’t just about getting fucked off your tits in a disused warehouse. We were the children of the future who had found our direction. The dominating factor that would propel us into the next millennium was that all races would face this chapter together. The old-school patterns of thought would be replaced by a new-found unity. So we sat and joked about organising a demonstration in the centre of London on a Saturday afternoon: 20,000 people marching through Oxford Street demanding their rights as citizens to party all night long.

  As it turned out, this was to be our last event with Sunrise. Tony went on to arrange legal parties in equestrian centres around the country. This was inevitable: Sunrise didn’t need us, and we didn’t need them. We were all good friends and had the most respect for one another. Meanwhile, we hit the road in search of a suitable warehouse.

  GENESIS 1989: CHAPTER OF CHAPTERS

  Things were starting to get a bit hot for us. The police had been duped on several occasions and it wouldn’t be long before they caught on. We knew we had to form a decisive plan of action that ensured that in future our parties couldn’t be stopped. Our first decision was to locate at least two venues so that, in the event of an emergency, we could swap warehouses. We could hire enough equipment to stock both gaffs, and have two teams at the ready to complete the job. It was worth the double costs to ensure our peace of mind.

  Our first week of searching afresh was very productive. Within a couple of days, we’d found two buildings. One was off an A road in north London and was the last warehouse down the end of a private road. A huge enclosed yard went around the building and could hold a hundred or so motors.

  We were trying to look inside the warehouse when a voice close behind us said, ‘Can I help you?’

  We turned around to see a man on a bike pedalling out of a small metal gateway that led to a river. We asked the geezer whether he knew who owned the building but he didn’t, and pointed to a caravan parked further up the road. We walked towards the caravan and a scruffy security guard came out to meet us.

  ‘Excuse me, I wonder if you can tell us who owns this building?’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you there,’ he answered. ‘It’s been empty for over a year and nobody goes in or out.’

  I felt my pulse quickening. ‘Look, can we be straight with you?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘We organise special music business parties in warehouses like this and we’re looking for a venue to stage our next show. If we were to give you £100 to turn a blind eye on Saturday next week, what would your reaction be?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that, mate. I might get into trouble.

  You’ll have to speak to Martin first.’

  ‘Who’s Martin?’

  ‘He lives on one of those houseboats down there –’ he pointed to the gates ‘– and he speaks for everyone along this stretch of river.’

  ‘Can you introduce us to him?’ asked Keith. ‘If you both agree with our plan, we’ll give you the money up front.’

  The geezer took us through the gate and towards a shabby-looking houseboat that looked virtually incapable of staying afloat. The guard shouted, and after a couple of minutes a head popped out of the wooden entrance to the floating nightmare and asked us to climb aboard.

  Surprisingly, the interior was clean, decorated in quite a bohemian style, and looked comfortable. There were giant cushions on the floor, ornaments from India on the shelves, and the smell of incense filled the air. Ambient melodies played on a small cassette player in the background.

  Martin was the absolute image of a Sixties hippie, a man who was totally in touch with the world and at one in his heart, tall, dark-haired and softly spoken. He introduced us to his girlfriend and motioned for us to sit do
wn on one of the big cushions. On the table in front of us was a huge bong. We’ve always been puffers and had draw on us nearly all of the time. We pulled blocks of hash from each of our pockets and put them on the table. As Martin began preparing the home-made water bong, we explained what we had planned for the warehouse and said that we expected around a thousand people. Martin thought it was a fantastic idea and was right up for it. The only problem he thought we’d have was that the other boat owners might not like the noise and hassle. Keith and I suggested that we should pay for everyone to go away for the weekend and Martin’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Yeah, that would be cool,’ he said.

  There were nine other houseboats moored together and we said we’d give each owner £200 towards a weekend break. If Martin could make the arrangements we’d give him a monkey and, as soon as we got the all clear, he’d get the money. Martin asked us if we’d seen the building’s interior and said that he’d show it to us – but not before a hit from his well-packed bong.

  Once we got to the warehouse, a single doorway led inside. Martin booted the door and it immediately swung open. Wow! This was fantastic! What a pukka venue! The place was the size of six full-size football pitches and the ceiling just went up and up, perfect for a full-on lighting show. This was definitely the best gaff we’d ever seen. Our punters were going to love what we had in store for them.

  Keith and I thanked Martin for his time and said that we’d return with everybody’s money in a couple of days. We drove away screaming and shouting: we knew that this was the one that would guarantee our name in the dance-party hall of fame. This party would put us on the very top of the world map of party events.

  We returned to the houseboat two days later with the money that we had promised the owners. Martin was very happy: we must have seemed like two wise men bearing gifts! But little did he know what lay ahead. We’d told him that a thousand people were coming, but really we expected at least six times that number. The venue could comfortably hold 8,000 party people just on one level. We were so excited about our new warehouse that we forgot to check the electric fuse box to see if it was operational …