Can anyboby help with info re Blackburn Raves I went to...

Hi, nostalgic that I am, I'm trying to find out exactly where 2 Blackburn Raves I went to were. The 1st was on a saturday night the day before Christmas Eve 1989. We left Rochdale at 2am after the nightclubs shut - a van somehow appeared out of nowhere, as they did in those days - and reached Blackburn about 2.30. It was in a relatively-small disused building at the bottom of a steep street of terraced houses. A friend climbed through a window to get in without paying, not realising it was free entry. It was cold but packed and went on 'til about 7a.m. The police turned up at one point & an Inspector came in & walked around but then they left. Acid Rock was one tune played.

I then went (well, kind of) to another which must've been near Burnley as I had to pick my friend up from Burnley Police Station the next afternoon. This one was in a semi-rural area. We got there in the middle of the night, parked up then walked down the road past loads of local residents who were stood outside their houses with their arms crossed. Off the side of the road was a field with some sort of mill in it. All the residents being outside looking angry made me think the mill looked too easy to get trapped in so I went back to the car. Sure enough, the police turned up in big numbers shortly after and arrested loads of partygoers including my friend. He told me later the police took an axe to the decks & chased loads of people through surrounding fields as they fled. How we actually found these events I just don't know. Everyone just seemed to magically know where to go.

I'd been to an M25 rave down south in Summer '89 but these near Blackburn were different: the one down south was quite posh - if you can call being in a muddy field posh - but those Blackburn ones felt like Konspiracy on Tour, if that makes sense.

I did contact the moderators via the "Feedback" facility as I haven't posted on a forum before. The moderator suggested I asked you guys, especially someone called "Northern Star". Anyway, any info you can give would be nice as it sometimes feels as if such events never really happened, mainly because everyone was so caught up in the excitement at the time - it's not like anyone was taking notes. I actually found it hard to believe what I was seeing at the first one. It was like you'd been let into a kind of secret night-time world you'd never known about before.

Thanks. Dave, Rochdale.

Thanks

Thanks very much, Northern Star / Debs & Blackburn Bod.

Yes, magic stuff. You almost couldn’t believe what you were seeing and felt like you were taking part in a revolution. My friend had gone on for weeks beforehand saying “We have to get to Blackburn, we have to get to Blackburn...” every weekend but no-one took any notice of him ‘til that time before Xmas. We all piled in the back of a van & next thing we knew the doors were opened & we were told “Welcome to Blackburn” with big grins all round.

We just piled in this foundy / mill / whatever where it was already going on & bang! There it was: an energy – release detonated. The atmosphere had a charge I’ve not experienced before or since. It felt like an extension of Konspiracy or Fac51 but more illicit and, well, naughty.

As we came back over Owd Betts into Dale the next morning (I was sat in the front on the way back and obviously it was just after dawn and light now, that’s the only reason I have any memory at all of where it was) we knew we’d been at something special.

I know it was a bit weedy of me not to actually go into the second one but I just wasn’t kamikaze enough.

Yes, I’d be very grateful if you could scan and post any articles you have - thanks.

All I’m hoping to do is maybe drive past the place one day and think "There it was". At the moment it's like a misty memory (I'm sure you can understand).

Cheers, Dave

Thanks

Northern Star & Shooms, ta very much.

Northern Star... I’m reduced to using a public computer at the mo and you only get an hour a day so I’ll keep an eye on here and see if you scan any articles up – ta in advance if you do. No rush, main reason I want some sort of concrete memory of these events is cos the friend I went with (the one who got arrested at the 2nd one) is sadly no longer with us so it is like a nostalgia thing but also quite important in a way (hope that makes sense). Anyone who knows me would be astonished if they knew I used to go to events like that (it amazes me). I used to visit a company in Great Harwood on Heys Lane Industrial Estate and used to hear local lads from Accy talk about "warehouse porrties" (as they said "parties") from that era and used to think how shocked they'd be if they knew I'd been to some.

Shooms... ta very much for the links to look thru. I'll check them out. It's amazing how little record of all this stuff there is. I guess it's cos everyone was too caught up in it all at the time to bother recording it.

Shooms, ta very much for those links, I just watched the Boomtown one. Amazing stuff, shivers were going down my back as I watched it. Brings it all back to life again (it sometimes feels like these things never happened). Watching that Boomtown one's Part 2 I saw the date 17-12-89 on the camera & the bit after looked like the one I went to (by this I mean a bit of a separate alcove for the DJ & decks and the place had a low-ish roof) so I'm confused now - maybe it was the week before Xmas Eve? Northern Star, do you know where the one on 17-12-89 was? Either way, if you could put up here (or however you normally do it) any stuff from the Blackburn local paper from, say, last fortnight of December to first week of Jan I'd be grateful. If it's any trouble, just tell me what the Blackburn paper's called (Blackburn Evening Telegraph?) and I'll check it out myself. Obviously it's possible the building it was in got knocked down by now but not much I can do about that. Ta for what you said about my friend (obviously that's the main reason I wanna go and just see the place again and think about the memories).

Dave

Shooms, ta very much for those links, I just watched the Boomtown one. Amazing stuff, shivers were going down my back as I watched it. Brings it all back to life again (it sometimes feels like these things never happened). Watching that Boomtown one's Part 2 I saw the date 17-12-89 on the camera & the bit after looked like the one I went to (by this I mean a bit of a separate alcove for the DJ & decks and the place had a low-ish roof) so I'm confused now - maybe it was the week before Xmas Eve? Northern Star, do you know where the one on 17-12-89 was? Either way, if you could put up here (or however you normally do it) any stuff from the Blackburn local paper from, say, last fortnight of December to first week of Jan I'd be grateful. If it's any trouble, just tell me what the Blackburn paper's called (Blackburn Evening Telegraph?) and I'll check it out myself. Obviously it's possible the building it was in got knocked down by now or something but not much I can do about that. Ta for what you said about my friend (obviously that's the main reason I wanna go and just see the place again and think about the memories).

Dave

Thanks

Thanks, I'll watch this space

Guess you're having technical problems...

Guess you're having a few technical problems scanning stuff in there, Northern Star. No worries, thanks very much anyway, you've given me plenty of info to go off there. I'll have a trundle up to Blackburn in the next few weeks. As I say, it was just a kind of nostalgia thing but also quite important. So thanks again and to others who commented. Dave.