If, like many, you experience the unsettling feeling of being born in the wrong era, don’t fret. You can now vicariously live out the late 80s and 90s acid-house rave days through a new online archive.
FLASHBACK is a new digital archive that documents Blackburn’s rave scene from 1988-1991 through rare pictures and authentic interviews from the youngsters who “lived and breathed it”.
“The good, the bad and the ugly”: New archive of interviews and pictures from Blackburn’s underground 80’s acid-house rave scene is available online now.
“As a decade of decadence ended, and the 1980s limped towards the finish line a generation of disenfranchised and discarded young people were left with the greatest hangover of all.”
A group of Blackburn’s finest came together to create an underground movement in post-industrial Blackburn, one of UK’s more raucous Northern towns. The innovative bunch repurposed abandoned warehouses and mills to host illegal acid-house parties, otherwise known as raves, on a huge scale for over 10,000 people.
The archive aims to provide a snapshot into the heritage of “Blackburn’s greatest working-class revolution”. Check out the collation of unobstructed recollections from 33 participants; “ravers, DJs, the organisers, the police and politicians” who all played a vital role, or had a strong opinion on, the parties that shaped and moulded the future of the UK rave scene.
Check out the full archive here.
