What kind of lunatic goes to a rave at 7am? This kind.
A couple of weeks ago I happened upon a seemingly incongruous event listing claiming to be for a "morning rave". What an odd concept. I checked I hadn't read it wrong or misunderstood it somehow. Upon further investigation it appeared that this was not a joke and that said event would be beginning not ending, but beginning, at 7 of the am. A.M.
Also it was outside in a newly pedestrianised (it's a trial) section of Gloucester Street, right next to my beloved Tūranga. A rave. In the morning. Outside. Next to the library.
Well, who in the name of little fluffy ducks, would attend such an event?
Me. I would.
If only for curiosity's sake (dear reader, there are soooo very many things that I have done in my life purely for the sake of curiosity but luckily I only regret a very small number of them. <insert Ted Lasso dart-playing speech about being curious here>).
In my defence, this thing was a) free, b) on early enough that I would be able to get to work on time and c) took place during a week when I didn't have parenting duties, so once my brain had latched onto it as a possibility, I couldn't find any reasonable excuses not to go. I quickly booked online and got my enabler bestie on board as my rave-partner.
I did, however have some misgivings. Mainly, what the fuck do you wear to a rave that's at 7 in the morning?
My previous experiences with raves were in this far off land that those of us that lived through it call "the nineties" and that people who were born in the "after times" call "the late 1900s" (which is both rude AND accurate, so I hate it very much indeed).
In those days of yore, I had been known to wear a very stretchy corset, ridiculous clonky shoes, and my hair in those cute "not-quite-Princess-Leia because they were smaller and perkier" bunches. I usually had some kind of glitter on my face that I thought helped make up for the lack of self-esteem but actually didn't. In truth I wasn't that much of a raver. I mean, I only went to The Gathering once. But being in your late teens to early twenties in the [winces] late 1900s meant that you were a part of that culture in some way or another. It sort of rubbed off on you whether you were really into it or not, like a contact high... or someone else's body glitter. It didn't feel like it was really optional.
Now, here I am. 49 years old. A librarian. I do embroidery FOR FUN. There are bits of me that get sore on a semi-regular basis. I don't even own any body glitter. Anyone who has followed me on social media the last few years will know that I love clothes and have an outfit for just about everything, but this one really screwed my sartorial noodle.
In the end I settled on my bike shorts* as I would be biking to the rave (I would be biking to the rave) to which I added a brightly coloured t-shirt, a pink hoodie, and my most athletic sneakers (ie the only ones that aren't street shoes but are for actual exercise). Feeling a tad bleary to be in the company of people so early in the day I also took some green plastic sunglasses.
I think I thought only a few weirdos would come to this thing. I was wrong. Hundreds of beautiful weirdos came to this thing.
I got there just after 7am and noted with dismay that the queue to enter snaked all the way around the corner nearly to Cathedral Square. I struck up a conversation with the next person in the queue and remarked at how early it was and they admitted they'd actually got here an hour early "on accident"**. Another lady confirmed that they usually start at 6.30am.
Hang on. This is a regular thing? Apparently for Morning People it is.
In any event the queue moved very quickly. Once inside the gated off area I chose not to avail myself of the free coffee, water and bananas because I don't drink coffee, I didn't want to get in a second queue after just leaving one, and I had a protein bar in my pocket.
It was busy but the crowd was still spaced out enough that I got some way towards the front and got to shuffling in a very uncommitted kind of way, because you've got to ease into these things.
Honestly, it was worth it for just the people watching. I was very pleased to find that I was not the oldest person there by any stretch. It was a real mix of people who weren't yet born in the nineties and rave generation stalwarts.
And as for clothing it ran the full gamut - active wear and street wear, people who looked like they were heading to their office job straight afterwards without changing, a young couple (fun fur for her, tie-dye for him), a fifty-something woman in a bucket hat that looked like a frog (the hat, not the woman). I saw another woman who was wearing a trenchcoat and looked like she might be in the CIA. I saw a man with a toddler on his shoulders, who had a baby's bottle of milk sticking out of his pants pocket. A man with a bamboo fan with ribbon tassles that would flutter in the air. I suffered a non-drug related flashback when I caught sight of an inflatable alien being held aloft, and that whole pre-millennial X-files-with-aliens-on-everything era surged back into my brain, unbidden.
Everyone was having fun. Even some of the hotel guests 5 or 6 storeys up peered past their curtains only to be greeted by a sea of people waving up at them like the world's biggest "Welcome to Christchurch, we're all a bit weird here" greeting party. The cleaner in the library wiping child smudges off the insides of the windows got the full blast of hundreds of people's positivity (those cleaners work hard and they deserve every bit of appreciation that comes their way).
At one point I was chatting to a friend of a former work colleague and he expressed surprise we hadn't had "Sandstorm" yet. Immediately I turned into an enthusiastic 20-something: "Oh, that would go OFF!"
Christ, what a dork.
Perhaps, in the end, that is the main difference between this 21st century rave and the ones of my youth, that one group of people is waiting for Darude to drop, and the others... aren't.
The other wonderful difference?
There were blessedly... NO WHISTLES.
*These were quite different to the fluoro pink and black bike shorts I wore in the late 1900s which were not, in fact, for biking in. Rather these are a very tasteful navy, and have pockets you can put your phone and keys into so you can go on "walks" for "exercise".
**Is there a more distinct generational divide than the prepositional split between them that say "by" and them that say "on"? Doubtful.
