Accelerated Culture 4 @ The Sanctury; October 13, 2001
There was only a few of us going to the rave — Dolby (who’s birthday we were celebrating), Hugh and me. Just the hardcore followers!
We had left the organisation of getting there to the morning of the event which made it rather frantic, especially since Dolby’s car decided to play up on him! We finally left at about 5pm leaving us 4 hours to get there in time for the start! With a couple of stops for breaks and fixing the car (which was still playing up) we arrived in Milton Keynes at 7:30. We spent quite a while trying to find the Sanctury — we managed to find the main road it was off, but no sign of the actual road; really poorly sign posted for such a big event.
Having found the Sanctury, we headed off into town in search of some food and toilet opportunities in the shape of Tescos which was just around the corner. We decided the car was safe enough there for the night. With an hour and a half to kill before it started, we chilled out in the car for a while, trying to anticipate what it would be like inside.
At about 8:15 we made a move for The Sanctury on foot, making use of the time to have a jay on the way down. When we got to The Sanctury we found quite a big que already and it was only about 8:30, so we sat down nearby, then made our way to the que. It seemed like an etternity waiting to get let in! A women selling whistles, horns and glow sticks kept walking up and down the que, we refused to buy any as we wanted to wait till we were inside — they seemed like an inconvenience at this time. Come 9pm everyone was quite anxious, in this period, more fags were smoked than in any other time period I expect! We were rather mellow I think, my legs were acking as I hate standing around doign nothing, to our entertainment, the people in front of us had skunk spliffs on the go. Every time the police went past in their van the crowd would boo which was quite funny.
When the first batch of people were let in the crowd let off a big outburst of whistle and horns blowing — it was quite a special time to witness. We didn’t know what to expect when we were in — it turns out there was a maze of guard rails which seemed to take forever to get to the end off. When we got to the end, ladies were going in first — we had to hold tight. There were about 4 big x-ray type machines checking for blades, shooters, etc. I guess. The other side of these you had to empty your pockets, place everything on the table and stand with your arms and legs spread, while you were patted up and down. We had no problems through these, but we saw two people walk towards the entrance with some seriously disgruntled faces on them — we suspect they had something they shouldn’t have.
When we were in there we had looks of such relief on our faces — finally there!! The first thing we did was check out The Sanctury itself, which looked pretty big from the outside. We went in, and went straight to the bar — had Carling at great expense (£3 a can, as was everything else). The first DJ on was Garry K, and I have to say I thought he was awful — didn’t deserve to be up there at all — barely got any tunes matched and kept re-winding most of them. Fair enough — it was only the first set… the dance floor was pretty empty, with a small group of people in front of the stage dancing, as Garry K dropped Body rock, the place started to fill a little bit. We weren’t dancing at this point — choosing to have some drinks before we attempt to get our flex on. After a few cans we decided to take our drinks outside, see what was out there — there was a dogdem car ride and something called the ‘Hellraiser’ which was a circle of cars going spinning round really quickly over some vigorous bumps — that was all the fairground was — quite disapointing as the flyer makes you believe it’s some big thing!
Also outside there was a merchandise stall, selling tape packs, whistles, horns, glow sticks, cameras, etc. all at expensive prices — horns were £6.50! I thought the tape packs were cheap though — £12 for an 8-pack. There was also a candy stall or something and hot dog/burger stall with chairs and tables as well as a chill out tent with many chairs and tables in there. We went back inside to get some more drink — this would be our last one before dancing. We took it outside, and on the way in, I got whistles and horns for us all. Now 10.30 I’m not sure who was on, I think it was Digital who was blowing up the dance floor, causing a rawkus — it was filling up nicely in there, the floor was going for it. Next up was Krust who absolutely killed it — the crowd was going mental to this set. For me Digital and Krust played the best sets of the night — I enjoyed them the most. We continued dancing for what must’ve been a few hours, got more drink, came back on and Andy C was on. Not too sure who followed after him, as I was just too busy raving. I know we heard Hype (identifiable because of the scratching) some time after.
The mainstage was along the longest side of The Sanctury, either side of the stage were two huge digital projection screens which were really great showing some wicked changing images, rather like what u get in Windows Media Player, but far better. The laser shows were pretty good, but they didn’t use the strobe too much — at the beginning they used it more strangly. I didnt see dancers too often — I may have just missed them… overall I had a wicked night — thought it was absolutely raging in there, and can’t understand why it never gets talked about in Knowledge, etc. Haha, the fun fair rides were brought down by Dolby sitting on the box where the power was going into — not too sure what he did, but when he got up it all came down! When we left at about 4am they hadn’t got it back up. The event was really well organised, imho, with no hardly any attitudes (I believe there was a fight at the front at one point — security were called down there and lights blasted down there). Just a brilliant night, though really hot and sweaty in there — we came out soaked! We also had wet feet because the toiletts were flooded…