Phil Beddard, highflyers Booth-Clibborn Editions Press, 2000, p.17.
This is about half a page from Harry Harrison’s Dreaming in Yellow. Want to know the rest of the story? Buy the book. At the end of this passage is another link, click that and you’ll see my review of it. Do let us know if you have the flyer for this party, or the newspaper clippings, or even a photo! Memories as always welcome, however sketchy, just stick ’em in the comments. All comments are approved but please be patient 🙂
And so, on 10th August 1991 we threw Derbyshire’s first proper hit-and-run free party. With Phil’s bus parked across the old airfield, tarps strung from it, Black Box and decks assembled on the grassy concrete, this was truly an acid house party. Rick threw a flyer together:
‘DiY SAY GET IN 2 THE GROOVE: THIS PARTY IS ALL NIGHT, OUTDOOR AND FREE’
We distributed the flyers in Nottingham and Derby and, by golly, they worked. From the dozens of revellers who had made it to the small Biggin parties, we suddenly had hundreds. This level of lawlessness, with no charge, no fences, no security and no end time, was entirely new to most of them – and they loved it. The music went on until sometime on Sunday afternoon; the police arrived at some
point with only a couple of cars, but they didn’t seem particularly bothered. At the end of the day, why should they be? Does anyone really need to get hostile with a group of happy young people dancing in the sun? However, some hostility did emanate from the local paper, whose headline ran ‘Shock Disco Invasion Shatters Night Peace’. We, of course, loved that, later naming a track ‘Shock Disco Invasion’ in its honour.
Harry Harrison, Dreaming in Yellow. Velocity Press, 2022, p.167-168.
UK Free Parties and Free Festivals 1988-1994 