Vibe Tribe Party Report

Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 20:24:35 +1000
From: crunch@geko.com.au (John Draper)
Subject: Vibe tribe party report

Vibe tribe report Well, time once again for yet another report on the rave scene here in Sydney.

This weekend was the Vibe Tribe outdoor party in Sydney park. We heard on the radio that the location was fairly easy to get to, so we headed out there to check it out.

The location is at an old industrial park, at the St Peters train station. Sure enough as we got off the train, we heard the music. The party was much bigger than I expected, but it was certainly underground.

The sound system was set up against an old brick wall or building, decorated by black light posters. Out away from the dance area was the grassy part, where people were hanging out and chilling.

Almost immediately I started dancing, but the DJ was changing the beats around with almost every song. Certainly wasn’t continuous. But when the other DJ went on, the energy picked up considerably. Sometime later, they were making an announcement asking the crowd to not let the police get anywhere near the turn tables. But as I looked around, I couldn’t see anything, so I continued dancing. The vibe was amazing, a lot like the sunset parties in SF. Eventually, sometime around 2 am, the cops tried to charge into the group of people dancing near the front, but the crowd definitely deflected most of them back towards the edge. A person was up there asking people to stand form, saying “We have a right to be here, just like anyone else” .. Finally the cops backed off, and the dancing continued. It was short lived though, as the cops were staying back to re-group. This time, they charged into the group of happy dancing folks, getting mean and violent, literally knocking down anyone in their way. They dragged off several people, one of which was the promoters, without regard for the groups safety. One of the vibe tribe members was injured badly in the fracas, but the ravers stood their ground and chanted “We just want to dance…!”. Then other people were yelling “Go out and stop the muggers and leave us alone”… Others were saying “Look, they are vandalizing your car, go and stop them…”.

Eventually the cops found the generator, shut it down, and carted it out. Immediately the group carted out the bongo drums and started drumming and defying the cops in any way possible. WoW!! would have to say, these Aussies got balls, because the group just refused to leave. More cops arrived, as the promoters were negotiating with the supervisor, and the cops were also being especially nasty. They eventually backed off, and allowed the drumming to continue.

All in all, I’m told that 17 people were arrested, and a half hour later, the media showed up, but we left after that, and I headed over to another party called MORPH, but at about 5 am, things looked pretty dead, but I met one of the vibe tribe members that got injured, who later asked if I would join in a game of billiards, afterwards, I finally left and headed over to Recovery. Recovery was practically dead most of the afternoon, then eventually went home for a while.

Later on, towards the evening, I headed back to recovery, when things started to get hopping, and “Shade”, this new DJ was just getting on. Some people came up to me and said “This DJ is the best in Sydney”. Shade started off with some slower tunes (around 140 bpm), but gradually, the beats started to pick up. WOW! This guy was amazing, scratching to 160 BPM beats, literally tearing my head to shreds, as he gradually worked from trance to hard core. At the end of his set, he was somewhere around 220 BPM’s, literally taking off. WOW!! Now I see why this dude is so good.

After his set, Akira went on, and kept the “Doof Doof” sounds going for the remainder of his set as well. I eventually left, after that, visited some friends until late in the early hours of Monday morning.

WOW!! Another crazy weekend in Sydney…

Crunchman