Imagine a '60s hippie love-in with computers instead of sex
Byline:   NICK AUF DER MAUR
Credit:   FREELANCE
Column:   THE PAGE TWO COLUMN
05/05/93
Montreal Gazette   (GAZ)
Edition:  FINAL
Section:  NEWS
Page:     A2
Category: COLUMN
(Copyright The Gazette)
---  Imagine a '60s hippie love-in with computers instead of
  sex ---
 The video on Pulse shows hundreds of kids running away from the
police. Then it pans over to a kid down on the ground, apparently
hurt.
Then a cop in riot gear hits him with his long club, then kicks
him. The cop walks away, comes back and hits him with the club
once again.
That was the denouement of the big "rave" party at the Palais de
Commerce (the old Show Mart) on Berri St. opposite the bus
terminus late Saturday, early Sunday.
Earlier that evening, I had met my daughter, Melissa, now a 21-
year-old university student, and she had told me about "rave"
parties, a European, particularly British, phenomenon I had read
references to in the past couple of years.
"Raves" are basically big alcohol-free parties, usually held in a
big warehouse with "techno" music and assorted high-tech gadgetry,
weird lights and so on. A major component of these parties is
drugs, usually hallucinogens, particularly Ecstasy, a designer
drug that produces an effect along the lines of LSD.
Another major feature of "raves" is that they are held in out-of-
the-way places, such as an abandoned warehouse in an industrial
zone or a big barn outside a city. In England, the location is
usually kept secret till the last minute. Often participants are
taken to the rave in shuttle buses with blackened windows so the
kids don't know where they are going. This apparently is a part of
the mystique.
Melissa told me of the one that was going to happen at the Palais
that night. Intrigued, I asked her to tell me about it.
During the winter, a friend had invited her to go to Metropolis to
see a performance of a group called Orb, which makes the techno
computer music used at "raves." Its repetitive computer sound is
very pumpy with frequent beats. My daughter finds it very annoying
and refused to go. Her friend told her she should be more open-
minded: "This is going to be the next big thing. Something new,
for and by this generation, not all that past stuff like rock."
Not her cup of tea, so she didn't go.
But a few weeks later, Melissa found herself at "one of those
sleazy rock parties, with everybody getting drunk" in Old
Montreal.
Somebody mentioned there was a small "underground rave" party going
on in a nearby loft. She drifted over out of curiosity.
"It was very straight, quite a contrast to the rock party," she
told me. "A young crowd dressed in outrageous bright colors,
primary colors, bright reds, yellows. Lots of them carried props,
like toys and rubber ducks. They chewed gum and handed out
lollipops and candies."
They drank "smart" drinks, a popular fad. "Smart" drinks are
basically health drinks, laced with yeast, proteins and big doses
of vitamins, particularly B, which are supposed to provide energy
to dance to the techno beat.
She sort of enjoyed it. A flier she found announced Montreal's
first major "solstice rave party" for March 27, location to be
obtained by contacting the rave hotline 24 hours before the event.
Major means up to several thousand ravers.
It was organized by a group called DNA, composed of 19- and 20-
year-olds, techno DJs and such.
It was held at the old Museum of Contemporary Art building next
door to Habitat 67 at Cite du Havre. It was scheduled from 11 p.m.
to 7 a.m., with shuttle-bus service provided from downtown.
Admission: $15.
About 2,000, maybe more, showed up, including busloads from
Toronto, Ottawa, New York and elsewhere. "Young people everywhere
are looking for a good rave," my daughter explained.
However, there were only three doormen. Three police officers who
happened by insisted the crowd form orderly lines before anyone
was allowed entrance. This took an hour and a half to accomplish.
The former museum, with its many rooms, long corridors and
skylights, was conducive to a "rave" and the atmosphere was
terrific, my daughter said.
Different rooms had different high-tech features, slide shows, TV
video walls and various kinds of techno music. There was body-
painting, "smart" drinks, juices, lots of merchandising of
colorful rave apparel, crazily colored big tuques, silly hats,
baggy pants, etc.
There was a booth that had electronic goggles, which produced a
hypnotic strobe-light effect. The people at the booth advised
people on the drug Ecstasy not to try them.
Melissa reports the crowd was well behaved, "almost childlike, just
happy to be happy together. There was no drinking, no fighting, no
aggression, none of the negative things you often see at concerts"
where drug consumption is also heavy.
She reports most of the people appeared to be students, between 18
and 24. Some were younger, but fewer were older. She said that
despite her distaste for the form of music, she liked the
exceptionally friendly atmosphere. She said that the experience
made her want to go to another one and "make a survey, find out
why people went to those things, what the culture is about, or at
least what they think it's about."
She had the impression a lot of it had to do with "this young
generation having their own discovery, something brand new and not
derivative of baby-boomers. Their own thing."
I told her it sounded a lot like "hippie love-ins from the '60s,
without the sex but with high-tech substitutes like designer drugs
and computer-era gadgets and music." She allowed I might be right.
She went to the rave last weekend and reported the atmosphere
fairly different, if only because of the central location (a big
mistake, she thought), a huge crowd of first-time ravers and
disorganization at the entrance again, caused by the
time-consuming frisking of everybody coming in. (For bottles? For
weapons?)
She estimates a large majority of people were on drugs, much of it
acquired along with tickets at "before" parties. The drugs are
expensive, at $35 to $50 a hit. Some people smoked pot because
it's cheaper and simpler. But drugs appear needed "for the total
effect."
However, the crowd was again well behaved. If, as the police
report, three girls removed their tops while dancing - well,
"that's how they do body-painting."
The police made a show of force after she had been there less than
an hour. At first, the presence inside of riot cops was greeted
good-naturedly, but she couldn't tell from where she was in the
back what provoked a panic that led to kids' pouring out on to the
streets, with the police chasing them. Some friends of hers were
clubbed, she learned the next day.
Fliers have appeared in the city advertising a major, three-day
outdoor rave in Vermont in a few weeks, $99 for bus and lodgings.