Never too old to party if you're in middle youth

jonny68

Interesting article,one for the younger ravers to digest

August is in full flow and we’re riding the crest of the festival wave, but, while I was stomping through Glastonbury, and losing my phone, keys and memory at Glade, I couldn’t help noticing that there was something a bit different about the crowds. For once, it didn’t really come down to what everybody was wearing. What was noticeable was that, apart from the teenagers cavorting with bottles of cider, there was a shift in the average age of festivalgoers. The same could be said at Larmer Tree, Secret Garden, Latitude, Camp Bestival, Port Eliot and Kimberley. Suddenly, there seemed to be an awful lot of people in their late thirties, forties and even fifties. Festivals have become the summer playground of a generation of hedonists, brought up on all-night raves and warehouse parties, that is stubbornly refusing to hang up the glowsticks. Well, if the 72-year-old Jack Nicholson can still limbo with twentysomethings in the south of France, why can’t the middle-aged get out and party like it’s 1988?

Back then, they were called ravers, but now they might be better termed gravers. Dylan Thomas was clearly on to something when he wrote: “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” At Glastonbury, gravers were out in force in the area called the Glade, where they relived their memories of outdoor free raves and illegal warehouse parties. Every generation likes to party in its own way, but the original ecstasy crowd made an art form out of stamina and hedonism. No other tribe has embraced the primal pleasure of a repetitive beat with quite such enthusiasm.

Katie, 39, and her boyfriend, Ed, collectively have three children, all from previous relationships. They both work in advertising, but demanding careers and a handful of offspring haven’t reduced their appetite for partying. “When I go to festivals, what I’m really looking for is a trance tent where I can dance the night through until the middle of the next day,” she says. “I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager, and it makes me feel like time isn’t slipping away from me, that I am still, I suppose, young. Because we’re both divorced, we get weekends away from our kids when we can really go for it.”

However, the rules of engagement have, perhaps inevitably, changed slightly; walking the line between glamorous party animal and clapped-out oldie is a tricky business, especially if Botox is the chemical you really can’t live without anymore. I started raving as a teenager, and dancing for three days by a dusty sound system at Castlemorton, surrounded by dreadlocked crusties and the last battered vehicles of the original travellers’ convoy, was a defining moment of my youth. Two children, a divorce and a busy career later, I can’t replicate that feeling of untrammelled freedom any more, but I can touch it, now and again, to remind me what being a teenager felt like.

Pulling an all-nighter when you are older can get ugly if it isn’t followed by a long stretch of undisturbed sleep, which means that such events have to be plotted with the precision of an SAS manoeuvre. Our minds are nimble, but all that dancing means our joints have taken a hammering; the answer, as one enthusiastic graver the wrong side of 40 put it, is “throwing money at my body the day after. I have to manage my hangover with military precision, and I booked a massage for when I got home after Glastonbury. I can’t dance for 10 hours straight, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be out there, goofing around with my closest friends as the sun comes up, at least half-a-dozen times this summer”.

Cash and contacts are the armour of the graver in their fight against the inexorable march of time. Peace, love and unity are so much easier to appreciate when you have an air-conditioned Winnebago for Glastonbury, or a fabulous villa in Ibiza. “Having the right connections matters. That means being friends with the best DJs and absolutely never having to queue. It’s about being a little bit more in control, although we’re all after the same feeling of togetherness that raves first gave us when we were teenagers,” says Andrea Morrison, 38, a graphic designer from Manchester.

Nick Ladd, creative director of Glade Festival, who, let’s face it, has enough hedonistic experience under his belt to write a PhD on raves, reckons that, two or three decades down the line, those gravers will still be partying. “As we’ve grown older, we’ve got better at organising a totally flawless experience in the way we party,” he says. “Raving is about existing in the moment, and that’s pretty seductive in today’s world, when so much is about tomorrow. There’s no better place in the world than dancing in the sun in a field in England to fat psychedelic tunes. Nobody is making us give this up, so why should we?”

CARRY ON GRAVING

Why the party's not over yet for Alison Thomson, 46

You either love dancing or you don’t. And I do — always have done. It began, aged 14, with flying hair to Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, before dashing outside for fags when Three Times a Lady came on. Since then, I’ve shaken my tush from Brighton, via Sherry’s and the Brighton Belle (where Norman “Fatboy” Cook cut his DJ teeth), to London and the Wag, the Cafe de Paris and one-off nights like Puschka. When the “Mino” (as we dubbed the Ministry of Sound) opened, things got large. And, of course, we fortysomethings like to think we discovered Ibiza.

So just because I’ve hit 40 doesn’t mean I can’t still hit the dancefloor. I’ve always liked places with an older crowd — it lent an air of distinction, especially when it included John Galliano, Neneh Cherry and Michael Clark, even George Michael, Mick Jagger and (“Is that…? Yes, it is!”) Mickey Rourke.



http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6792387.ece

cranky bollix

Id say this place has its fair share of gravers , if the old skool asylum thread is anything to go by .Im nearly 29 so would that make me an early graver . at what age does one become a graver

jonny68

cranky bollix wrote: »

Id say this place has its fair share of gravers , if the old skool asylum thread is anything to go by .Im nearly 29 so would that make me an early graver . at what age does one become a graver

I suppose you would be a "graver" mate, i definitely am anyway in my late 30's:o:D:D:D

PS- Jaysus graver,where do they get these bleedin names from:rolleyes::D

amybabes

wrote my thesis for my bachelors degree on this subject - "House music and rave culture - a glimpse into a worldwide cultural phenomenon" .... best thing i ever did, was a labour of love. but so proud of the end result...let me kno if anyone fancies a read, i got an A1 on it:):p:cool:

stomprockin

amybabes wrote: »

wrote my thesis for my bachelors degree on this subject - "House music and rave culture - a glimpse into a worldwide cultural phenomenon" .... best thing i ever did, was a labour of love. but so proud of the end result...let me kno if anyone fancies a read, i got an A1 on it:):p:cool:

would love a read mate!

cranky bollix

wouldnt mind a look.what were ya studying

old gregg

a happy hardcore graver here anyway. Doing more festivals now than ever, though I did opt for a cabin in Transylvania just for the comfort . who needs sleep at a festival when you've got 'the devil's dandruff'

Yep, would enjoy a read too

Scubadevils

Yes, I'd be keen to read this too!

amybabes

i did marketing in U.L, but my supervisor told me to write about something i was interested in so put the spin on it that while dance music as a whole has been marketed to a certain extent..... there still lies the anti- commercialism and anti-marketing attitude of those who love the music - and that marketing has been near impossible especially with house as the demographics of the fans are so different - e.g attend any house night event in waterford city for example, and there will be people there age 17/18 upto late 40s or even 50s, from all backgrounds and walks of life - different "social" backgrounds, occupations, interests etc outside the music. Was a nightmare to write as an academic piece as i needed published articles in marketing and academic journals, and books to reference, and the first 2 months i couldnt find anything!! but once i found one by a professer in scotland it was like opening a treasure chest....actually really amazing how many in depth studies have been done in the area.
Sorry i'm raving on about it now....it consumed me for almost a year so i got a bit obsessed with it ha! I'm in Oz at the moment, but have my laptop with me...in the next couple of days i will email it or post a link as soon as i make it to a wireless spot,may have to hit up maccy d's! otherwise, if any of u are in the area...its in the thesis section in the library in U.L!!

jonny68

Hi Amy,

If you need any assistance id be glad to help, I have been on the Rave scene since 1990:)

Executive Steve

jonny68 wrote: »

Hi Amy,

If you need any assistance id be glad to help, I have been on the Rave scene since 1990:)

You must have forgotten how to read while you were out raving, she wrote the thing years ago and it's in the UL library already!


:pac:

jtsuited

eh anyone else think it's funny the source of this article?

what next, the 'new music is bollocks' column from Woman's Way?

Ok so just in case anyone didn't make it to the bottom of the OP (which is understandable) this article is from the women's section of the Times. Yup the same section that tells all the middle aged women how to dress to instil confidence after they have become infertile.
Or that turqoise floral dresses are SO in this season.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6792387.ece

acman

LOL, this just goes to show how many people read this thread and didnt get to the bottom of the original post...too funny