Acid Crackdown: Sunrise III, Greenwich

2003 note: Sunrise III, which took place in November 1988 on an industrial wasteland that would later house the Dome, was a pivotal event in Acid House culture, the beginning of the end of the never-to-be-repeated innocence of that Summer Of Love. For the preceding six months the police in London had been admirably indifferent to the Acid House scene, turning a blind eye to loved-up mass events that they knew threatened less trouble than a Mile End pub on a Friday night. But the August silly season saw the tabloids endlessly taunting the police over their inaction, and finally they felt the need to be seen to act. The attempt to stop Sunrise III was the start of the clampdown on raves, well-timed to coincide with the onset of the miserable English winter. Of course raves sprouted again the following summer, but the atmosphere was never the same again, the LSD and ecstasy-fuelled belief that society was about to change for ever had died and the professional drug dealers moved in on the scene. This review was also the first time the NME dedicated the entire front page of the LIVE section to a club rather than a band.