IT’S a rainy Saturday night in East London, when three taxis pull up outside a warehouse in Hackney. Armed with only a text message of it’s whereabouts, there’s a certain air of apprehension amongst my friends as we approach the doors. Once inside, our names are ticked off the guest list (this party is not for random walkers-in off the street) and we pay our £3 entry fee.

It’s one of our friends 25th birthday’s and she’s promptly presented with a handmade birthday card from the organisers. This all comes as a bit of surprise considering my only illegal rave experience involved being barricaded inside a Sainsbury’s storage facility in Brighton, with about 500 dreadlocked drug-dealers and their pet Alsatians whilst the police waited outside to shut it down and search everyone.

We purchased strips of raffle tickets, which can be exchanged for drinks at the bar and make our way into the dimly lit room which hosts the bands and DJs. The first act is Dave Okumu from The Invisible, a massive expanse of a man who has been up for three days straight and proceeds to treat us to half an hour of noodling on his guitar with the aid of a loop pedal. DJ’s then blast us with an eclectic mix of 80’s, 90’s and 00’s hits which jump from the likes of Dizzy Rascal to Kraftwerk – albeit not entirely seamlessly.

Next up was The Gold Future Joy Machine, who fill the small smoke-filled room (yep, you can smoke inside at these parties) with never-ending curtains of guitar-soaked electro. It’s fuzzy, messy and passionate and fits the mood of the party perfectly. Micachu of Micachu and The Shapes then takeover the decks until the bitter end, pushing out a skillful mixture of dub-step and electro. It’s 3am when we spill out onto the street having had a brilliant time, thanking the organisers who seem to hate greedy promoters, ass-hole door staff and troublemakers as much as we do. Our eyes are peeled and our ears pinned for news of the next one.

Pictures: Hollie Reynolds




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