Illegal raves are better than clubbing

It’s something you need to get off your bucket list.

I was messaged the location on the morning of the party and found out it was in a forest – game on.

12 hours later I was in a taxi to a forest nobody in my group had ever heard of before; loaded with the same sort of alcohol you would bring to a session in a field when you were 15.

We got out of the taxi halfway up the drive into the forest in scenes that would remind you of every horror film you’ve ever seen, and heard the faint thudding of a sound system. Upon descending further into the forest we noticed a white sports car facing towards us, it flashed us once it had seen us and the driver told me to take the first right off the main path into the forest and if I followed it, I’d have arrived at the rave.

Cue the goosebumps.

A 10 minute walk (which seemed like eternity) later and we found ourselves in a field in the middle of the forest.

A haze of herbal smoke surrounded the sporadic groups of ravers we encountered. You had veterans of the rave scene and fellow first timers. Every one of them just as nuts as the next one. Some told me how they were big fans of the DJ playing later and how he’s even on Spotify.

Then another group asked me if they could wash their pills down with my cider because they’d only taken straight vodka.

Warmth guys, warmth!

The crowd varied from 16-year-olds to people the same age as my parents, from chavs to what I thought were Goths, and then there was me dressed like I was ready for a dinner with my grandparents.

One guy I spoke to, a Canadian called Cody stood out to me in particular, as he came on his own after discovering the event through Facebook and had lost count of how many pills he’d taken that night. He assured me he wouldn’t overdose as he was a big guy and knew what he was doing.

He kept repeating himself and, after he licked my face when I tried getting a photo with him, I decided I had had enough and moved on.

This is Cody licking my chin

The main DJ for the night came on – the esteemed Chris Liberator (who is on Spotify). The moon was high in the sky and the acid trance was flowing

The music was repetitive, but there was something special about being in a crowd of people out of their minds on dance and good times. The atmosphere was incredible and when you ask what time the party is going to last until, the only answer you got was “until the generator busts or Chris gets tired”.

The only and only Chris Liberator, who is Calvin Harris?

On any toilet breaks, you would notice breakaway campfires in the middle of the forest, with a small group gathered around it playing music from their phones – come on guys, where is your community spirit?

Not long after the cold of night really started to get to everybody and people broke off to build different campfires. Two huge campfires the scouts themselves would be proud of warmed up half the crowd whilst the other half remained active dancing at the DJ set.

The Liberator die hard fans rave on

The topics of conversation at the bonfire ranged from local politicians to why things were certain colours and why males had beards but females didn’t.

I heard the quote of the night around that campfire. “I don’t like nightclubs because like in McDonald’s they’ll still serve really fat people, but in a nightclub they won’t serve really drunk people”.

We were as amazed by the fires as the cavemen were

As the night got colder I was zipping between the fires and DJ set but decided to call it a night at 5am. Five hours prematurely, the rave lasted until 10. It was a night I won’t forget anytime soon and, although I’m not a big fan of the drug scene, I’d highly recommend anyone to try a rave like this out at some stage. It was fucking mental.

Credit to Davy Johnson for the photography (until his phone died) and company on the night.