Interview with Multigroove about the New Years Rave [31-12-1991, Amsterdam]

vr 27 januari 2012 ,

In the first years all Multigroove parties were illegal. This was really in the begining of the rave scene in Amsterdam. DJ'S who were playing were Dano, Buss Fuzz, Voodoo Child and Flamman Abraxas.

share this

This was one legendary new years warehouse party. Two parties from other organizations had been cancelled at this location with a heavy police presence. Nobody thought we'd have the balls to do it, so we did. A lot of effort and love went into making this party happen. A month of planning, scouting, mis-leading the police, promoting the party and making sure that everything needed in order to make this party happen was there. Two days of building involving moving the owners junk and caravans out of the way in order to create a dance floor. Scrubbing years of toxic pigeon shit of the floors with iron scrapers. NO ONE except for the building team knew where it would be held which meant that we had to go pick up all equipment such as generators, sound systems, bars, etc....ourselves while shaking off police tails. I wouldn't even let the company delivering the toilets in on the location. Just as well because when I arrived at the agreed meeting point, the police were already there sending the toilets away and threatening further action if they delivered. So in the end, no toilets. Just oil drums which we placed within fences covered in plastic. But nobody cared on the night. We were all too busy having a good old mash up. During the building up we heard helicopters overhead searching for the location.The police were really done with Multigrooves illegal raves and tried their best to find and stop us. So it was a constant cat and mouse game between us and the police. We quickly covered the generaters outside with camo nets and everyone stayed inside till we heard them leave. Then our drills and hammers came out and back to work we got. At one point a car parked just outside the location and everyone stayed still and quiet till we were convinced it was not the cops......eventually everything was in place. The buses began picking the party heads up from Amsterdam Central Station.They would take a circle around the ring road of Amsterdam to shake the cops off before dropping people off. By the time the police figured out where the party was there were already 500 people inside and 500 outside; too much for a handfull of cops to get rid of so the party went on. At about 10.30pm the owner of the property turned up green, wanting to strangle me. He wanted to charge me. We both ended up in the waiting room of the police station on New Years eve but it was so busy that they kept us waiting. I kept trying to talk to him, offering money and letting him know that the best chance he'd have of there being some sort of control at the party was if he worked with me so that I could go back and run things. But every time I'd try to talk he'd try to attack me. Crazy angry he was. Finally we were told that we'd be waiting much longer. I then managed to brake him down and we jumped in a car together back to the location. We negotiated a sum in the car on the way back. This party became one of the most legendary parties ever! No body cared what they looked like or that the DJ's were too smashed to mix with utter precision. Everyone was just lekker gabbering until late the next day. It was all about atmosphere. No fights. No snobbery. Everybody happy. Just one big Multi family having a good time. Everybody on the same ecstasy. Fuck the system. Fuck the law. Leave us alone we just wanna party. I was sick as a dog in the days following the party due to all the hard work and the toxins we were cleaning up and swore I would never do it again. But in the week following, I watched this exact clip and it inspired me once more. This was worth it! Since then I've given at least 1000 more parties but the next one we began plotting was one of the other parties from Multigroove which became legendary, the tunnel party under the ring road of Amsterdam which I'll tell you about next time...

If you still have good pictures of flyers of this party, send them to stefan@multigroove.nl!