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One
thing was clear though, the event was popular, massively popular.
Despite there being no advertising and the phone lines not
opening 'till 10.00pm, loads of people turned up, and the
place was heaving, particularly the stairwell and for a while,
it was difficult to get to the ground floor, so I stayed upstairs.
The
reason for the popularity is simple, no hassles. This was
free land, go mad in an empty office block, no sound level
limits (which had ruined the Triology party the night before)
and of course no bouncers making sure you don't have too much
fun, and loads of drugs.
Anyway,
somehow I lost Doug for a while so I continued my wanderings
down a second staircase, through the water supply room and
into a huge underground room and a system with the most beautiful
sounds and a wonderful light rig, but not too many people
seemed to know it was there.
I
came back up to the first level where the punk band had been,
now there was a small area with a PA and a guy with a CD,
MD and DAT arrangement playing "home made" music of various
types. This guy looked like a real thug, huge he was with
deep set eyes. He seemed to know his music though and was
treating the CDs with utmost care.
Now
I began to see the strength of the underground in London,
the brilliance of the music and the two little figures held
stiff against the blandness of commercialism, I was enjoying
this, but then I noticed the punks, many of whom had been
doing a lot of ketamine and some had crashed out, others staggered
around. I decided it was a bit scary there, so I wondered
off back upstairs.
On
one floor there was what had been a restaurant. Although the
serving counter had been stripped out, the room still had
that air of potted plants and people in suites, it had been
a very smart place in its day.
Next
to the restaurant was the old kitchen area, with a large glass
chimney over what had been the cookers, beyond that more rooms,
more corridors.
When
I got back to this area the restaurant was full of people
standing around silently, it was the tripping room. The sound
of breaking glass came from the kitchen.
It
was about this time I began to notice the place was developing
a "down at heel" look, bottles strewn everywhere,
graffiti starting to build up on the walls. Several times
I heard the sound of breaking glass as people were having
fun trashing the offices.
The
party was in full swing and the whole building resonated to
the combined sound of the systems which produced a sort of
"banging rumble", especially impressive in the stairwell.
More
rooms later I find Doug, who seemed to be enjoying his first
squat rave, he'd been having an interesting time. I had been
worried as to how he would feel about all of this, certainly
it was quite unlike anything he had experienced in the US.
He seemed happy enough and we went upstairs together to yet
another room.
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This
room was huge. It was daylight by now (had been for some time)
and the large "glass wall" windows let the light flood in
to show a somewhat trashed open plan office room full of trashed
people going mental to banging intense psychedelic techno.
After dancing for some time I took a break and sat down for
a chill with Speedy Paul.
As
we were talking, some bloke on an out of control acid trip
introduces himself by slapping me on my head. A short while
later and he runs headlong into one of the large windows,
crashes through it, swings on the glazing bar, gets pulled
back in and thrown into my arms.
Party
over.
Suddenly
I'm holding a person with a massive cut to his stomach area,
I'm covered in blood and we have a full scale emergency on
our hands..
He
became known as the "window jumper" and
was very lucky to survive, I certainly didn't know I could
do any kind of first aid, never mind something like that.
Anyway,
once the ambulance and police business was done, me and Doug
left and went for a cup of tea. I was going into a form of
shock - post traumatic stress disorder - which took some time
to clear. Thanks to the police and an amazing bit of luck
I was able to make contact with Mr Skywalker and I told him
the full story, that helped to clear my mind and, it seems,
his a lot. He did make a full recovery anyway, but I don't
think he went to anymore squat parities. I however, did.
The
full story of what happened during the emergency, best as
I can remember it can be read here
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