World Raves
First Rave Club?
The Eclipse Club was established in 1990 to purely accommodate Ravers. Here is the history as found on their official website:
I did!!
July 1989 The big house, Fenny Drayton, Warwickshire, 600 clued up, drugged up dance fanatics danced the night away. Not bad.
28th October 1989 A secret location in a field in Barby, Northhamptonshire. So secret that 6700 people turned up! The farmer thought it was quite a lot of people for a Halloween party, as did the police who had been in a traffic jam for 4 hours on the road that ran through the village. Police presence was noted - 2 CID officers arrive at 3am and lock both doors to their car, which is not that unusual except that they were still inside the car at the time! Raving did that to some people! A raver called 'Catler' goes stepple jumping over all the hedges off into the sunset with no clothes on. Raving also did that to some people.
Money? What money!
And the tabloids said we were killing ourselves. Die laughing more like.
10th August 1990 "It's a fad. It will be over in 3 months". Superintendent Mick Bromwich, Little Park Street Police Station. Coventry. Obviously his crystal ball was having a bad day, because on...
13th October 1990 History was made by the opening of Britain's first legal all night dance club, 'The Eclipse' in Coventry. The line up consisted of Fabio, Mickey Finn, Sasha, Tony Ross, Evil Eddie Richards and DJ Dobbo.
From that day on, each and every Friday and Saturday from 10pm to 8am, The Eclipse opened it's doors to Britain's dance followers: it was not unusual for people to be still queueing at 6am such was the attraction of the club.
Our policy of bringing over American and European artists and combining them with the best of the British worked well and such line-ups could never be repeated again; Joey Beltram next to Sasha; Kevin Saunderson next to Grooverider, plus all the top PA's available from N-Joi, Moby, K-Klass, Sub Sub, The Prodigy, PKA, Altern 8, Nebula II, Shades of Rhythm and so on. The high standard set by the club was universally acknowledged with recognition from the readers of DJ magazine voting it best club of 1992, and quotes of 'Mecca of the Midlands' and 'Unparalleled success' in Mixmag 1001.
The membership of 74,000 included clubbers from Italy, Germany and Japan as well as regular visitors from all over the UK.
I leave the last word to 'Anon', an unnamed raver who pulled me by the shirt sleeve while I was standing on the balcony overlooking the huge dancefloor, "Ere that bloke is wanking"! I thought I had seen it all; couples getting to know each other intimately in toilets, dancefloors, cupboards, stairways, cars, car parks, the occasional offer of a free fellatio to security to let people in on busy nights, offers 0f 80 pounds a ticket to get in, every excuse known to man to get on the guest list. From Prince's manager to Lord whoever to visits from Bananarama, EMF, The Farm, Gary Clail, and even Seymour Stein - Madonna's record manager. But here was the ultimate, a twenty year old youth furiously masturbating at the front of 1,000 people on the main dancefloor. As ID magazine said, "Beats putting your hands in the air".