In CJ Stone’s 1996 book Fierce Dancing, he describes the transformative effect of attending his first ever rave in 1992 – a DIY Soundsystem party on the South Downs in Sussex. The experience of dancing under the stars with friends and strangers was so profound that it fundamentally altered his perspective on the rural environment. Afterwards, every time Stone visited a new place in the countryside, he thought: ‘this would be a great place for a party’.

Reading Stone’s words last year struck a chord with me. You see, my earliest experiences of dancing at unlicensed, do-it-yourself parties and raves had a similar impact. All these years later, I still look at new rural spaces I visit – wherever they are in the UK – through the same prism. So, I started asking friends who have attended raves and free parties if they thought the same, and by and large they did.

The roots of dance music may lie in urban spaces and marginalised communities, but when experienced in rural locations – with or without psychedelic assistance – it takes on a whole new meaning, at least for those who grew up and live in urbanised locations – that’s towns and larger cities for those seeking a more specific definition.

For city-dwellers in thrall to dance music culture, jaunts to the countryside to dance all night are a relative novelty. To us, the countryside is somewhere we go for walks, camping holidays, weekends away at posh hotels and Sunday afternoon trips to pubs in picture-postcard villages whose residents often cling on to a very traditional (and romantic) notion of the British rural idyll.

But what about those who grew up and live in rural and predominantly rural places? What are their experiences of dance music culture like, and has attending rural raves changed their relationship with the countryside? What did those experiences mean, and what does it tell us about dance music culture outside of the cities and sizable towns that have the infrastructure, volume of people and existing musical culture to support it?

These questions are at the heart of my latest long-form research project, which began in October 2021 when I enrolled at Solent University in Southampton. In a few years, it will hopefully result in a PhD thesis and maybe even a book.

In October, I did my first presentation on my research so far – and since I’m doing this part-time, I’m effectively a year into the project – at DC23, the first in-person conference organised by the team behind the academic journal Dance Cult – one of the world’s only academic publications and communities dedicated to research into electronic music and dance cultures. (DC23 also boasted an afterparty in which I played a set entirely made up of Yorkshire-related dance music – you can check that here)

What follows is a lightly modified version of that paper presentation, written up and slightly expanded. As it started life as an academic paper, you’ll find footnotes and a bibliography at the end. The headers and sub-headers are based on those used in the PowerPoint slides that formed a crucial part of the presentation.

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Storm From The East: Rural Rave Culture and Regional Identity in East Anglia

Some of you may be aware of my journalistic research into hidden histories of British dance music, particularly my book Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass Music.

The updated 2023 edition of the book features an afterword chapter analysing how Britain’s national dance music story has been told, and specifically what has been omitted. There are many gaps in historic narratives, but one of the most glaring is the lack of acknowledgement of the scale and frequency of dance music activity in the regions – especially those that are classed as rural or predominantly rural.

This is what I’m going to talk to you about today: rave culture in one of England’s most geographically isolated regions, East Anglia. What follows is based on a combination of previous journalistic work and a scoping research project conducted in 2022. This involved unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 12 former and current dance music participants in the region, as well of examination of existing texts and participant observation at a rave revival event associated with the 2022 First Light Festival in Lowestoft.

Rave in East Anglia – a largely hidden history

I wanted to start by highlighting quotes from two former scene participants. The first comes from early 90s rave promoter Stuart Banks: ‘People think nothing happens in East Anglia and we’re just a bunch of farmers’. The second is from raver Neil Saunders: ‘East Anglia was brilliant for rave, there was so much going on’.

Both of those quotes are taken from a DJ magazine article I wrote in 2022 examining the hidden histories of dance music in the traditional East Anglian counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. They’re illustrative of the attitude of dance music participants within the region, and likely those in other predominantly rural regions – their experiences, and the scale and frequency of activity, have largely gone unrecognised and undocumented.

Their views, and Banks’ specifically, highlight what Greed and Cring (1997) call the ‘cultural hierarchy’ at the heart of the urban/rural divide. Their call to look ‘in the places that are culturally the most remote’ is still valid all these years on.

British dance music and the rural

While the urban/rural divide explored by Ching, Creed and their colleagues in the American-centric in Knowing Your Place: Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy has been examined within different academic fields – spatial theory, rural studies, human geography, and so on – it remains missing from research into electronic dance music cultures and communities.

Naturally, dance music culture has traditionally been treated as an almost uniformly urban movement – despite acknowledgement of the role played by rural events in the rave and free party movements since the late 1980s (and particularly in the 1990s).

As far back as 1999, Gilbert and Pearson highlighted how rural raves ‘destabilised the axis between subcultural narratives of authenticity and metropolitan space’, noting – in a nod to then contemporaneous work on cultural hierarchies – ‘the divide between the town and the country or the capital and the provinces’.

The British rave movement of the ‘90s, the role the rural played in it and the subsequent crackdown by the authorities, has been heavily mediated, but far less attention has fallen on the experiences of those participants who lived in rural regions, the meanings they attached to them, and what this may tell us about notions of regional and local identity. Or, for that matter, how these experiences framed their relationship with space and place.

Yet as Joe Muggs noted in a 2023 review of the Happy Land compilation on Above Board Projects, for many young people in rural regions, attending raves and free parties not only provided formative, transformative experiences, but also access points to a culture they would otherwise have struggled to participate in.

The regional and the rural in academic research

For a long time, research into popular music culture overlooked the regional, the rural and the peripheral, but in recent years, this has started to change. There is now a growing movement within the ‘scenes perspective’ focusing not only on the regional and rural, but also geographically isolated and marginalised music communities (Walters & Jepson, 2019; Bennett, Green, Cashman & Lewandowski, 2020, 2023; Ballico, 2021).

Consideration has also been given to the relationship between the centre and the periphery, and how this is defined. Geographers and spatial theorists, including Henri Lefebvre and Kevin Hetherington, have also examined the highly contested nature of rural space; differing definitions of rurality; and the lack of rural perspectives within history.

Scholarly research on dance music culture in rural settings remains relatively rare. Work has been done on the ‘bush doof’ scene in Australia – a long-running rural rave movement –what it means to its’ mostly urban-based participants and how certain events deliver an ‘alternative cultural heterotopia’ (St John, 2005, 2015; Bennett & Canosa, 2021).

Wide-ranging research on rural raves within the United Kingdom, and the regional and rural communities of participants behind them, is thin on the ground. That’s one of the reasons I think this research is needed – and, as Cloke, Goodwin, Milbourne and Thomas (1995) highlighted, rural issues should be considered on their own terms, rather than via a specifically urban perspective.

East Anglia: ‘dissenting and distinctively rural’

Before discussing dance music in the region, let’s consider East Anglia on its own terms. Traditionally sparsely populated, with many of its larger urban settlements either located on the periphery of the region or separated by significant distances, for centuries East Anglia was reliant on agriculture and maritime industries such as fishing.

The region underwent significant change during the latter half of the 20^th century. Unlike other predominantly rural regions, East Anglia saw population growth and increases in employment and productivity – despite agriculture decreasing in significance. The tourism, small-scale manufacturing and technology sectors all grew and there’s evidence of middle-class flight to the countryside.

East Anglia has historically been a hotbed of dissent and protest, stretching back to Kett’s Rebellion against the Enclosures in 1549 and the rise of republicanism under Cromwell prior to the English Civil War. This forms a significant part of the region’s identity – at least to those who live there, who tend to have a strong sense of local and regional identity. Those outside the region often portray East Anglia as a stereotypical rural backwater, full of flat land, farms, fens and people with unusual accents. Those who live there are aware of these stereotypes and naturally find them frustrating.

Consider this quote from the then Managing Director of Anglia TV, the regional television outlet within the ITV network, cited by Ward and Tomaney in a 1995 rural studies paper: ‘[East Anglia is] strongly agricultural… There is a feeling of separateness. Geographically it’s a bulge. You don’t go through the region on route… You could go back further and point out that it was a stronghold of the republican movement during the English civil war, that it has a history of Methodism and dissent…’Do different’ is a Norwich slogan that applies in East Anglia…dissenting, cussedness and agricultural tradition.’

Musical counterculture in East Anglia

That dissenting part of East Anglian identity can be seen in the region’s embrace of musical counterculture. In the 1970s and early ‘80s the region played host to regular ‘fairs’ and free festivals, most famously the medieval style Barsham Fairs; Norwich and Ipswich were host to significant punk and post-punk music communities; by the mid 1980s, following the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ in Wiltshire, East Anglia saw a rise in the number of new-travellers moving to the region; and – more significantly for dance music culture – Great Yarmouth became a destination for all-day parties and weekenders.

Dance music activity increased in scale and frequency from 1988. There were significant dance music communities in the peripheral towns of Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Kings Lynn, as well as the larger settlements of Norwich, Peterborough and Ipswich.

The earliest raves took place in the region in 1989, initially away from specifically rural locations. There were numerous warehouse style pay-raves and free parties on industrial estates in Cambridge and Great Yarmouth, plus a small number on relatively remote beaches north of the latter town such as Horsey Gap. In the years that followed, activity began to occur more frequently, and further inland in more identifiably rural locations. At one point in the early 90s, activity was reportedly so widespread that there was ‘something happening every week’.

Early rural raves in East Anglia

During the first wave of rural pay-raves and free parties in East Anglia, open-air events drew in participants – both DJs and dancers – from across the region, as well as new-travellers who had wound up in the area. The exact role new-travellers played in the events is something I’ve yet to look into, though you’d expect some crossover given the strength of free party culture in other rural areas at that time – particularly Wales and the South West.

There is also evidence of cooperation between different promoters and free party crews, with one former rave promoter telling me that they would avoid competition and discuss dates and locations with each other.

Taken together, these two things helped to solidify a uniformly ‘hard’ East Anglian rave sound. This sound was also heavily influenced by the blend of music played by the region’s most popular DJs, who frequently appeared at rural raves as well as being key figures within the dance music communities in towns such as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

Initially, most – though not all – raves took place on land on and around Thetford Forest – a vast, man-made lowland pine forest close to the A11 London to Norwich trunk road, which is located roughly in the middle of East Anglia. It was easy to access by road from Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Thetford Forest could possibly be considered a ‘site of central sociality’ (Hetherington, 2000) with its own countercultural place myths. This is something I wish to explore within my fieldwork.

In East Anglia, rural raves are ‘traditional’

Significantly, rural raves didn’t die out in East Anglia following the passing of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. According to Adam Alston, a former rave participant turned Theatre Studies academic, ‘nameless DIY events’ and free parties, thrown by small groups and soundsystem collectives including Bees Knees, Kite High, Brains Kan and Equality cohesion, continued ‘throughout the 90s’ and well beyond (Alston, 2022). Many of these events took place in and around Thetford Forest, but also in quarries and gravel pits in North-East Norfolk and on former RAF airfields in the region. In addition to these rural raves, there were also numerous parties on beaches and within the sand dunes bordering them.

As part of my research, I’ve examined hundreds of news stories from local newspapers about ‘illegal raves’ in East Anglia going back decades, detailing events in quarries, woodland, and abandoned agricultural outbuildings. What’s clear is that rural raves are very much still a part of life in the region. Some of the events reported on over the last 20 years were small affairs with fewer than 50 attendees, while the biggest attracted well over a thousand.

For years, the Eastern Daily Press has run periodic stories based on police calls for information about planned raves. In several of these, a police spokesperson mentioned how raves ‘traditionally take place’ in East Anglia around bank holiday weekends – though in some years events were far more frequent than that. One story from 2007 mentioned how four sizable raves had taken place in a month, mostly in rural locations.

Other stories discussed police action to shut down raves. In these, it’s notable that those arrested and charged were usually between the ages of 18 and 25, and from small towns and villages, not larger urban settlements. Some had travelled from locations outside the county, including the similarly rural county of Lincolnshire.

A unique research opportunity

The culturally embedded and ongoing nature of rural rave culture in East Anglia provides a unique research possibility. In my primary research, I intend to recruit research participants who were active in the rural rave scene at different points between 1989 and 2019.

This will allow me to look not only at aspects of rave culture in the region decades ago, and the communities and networks that sustained it, but also relatively recent activity. It may be possible to map out the evolution of activity and how attitudes to raves and their meanings in East Anglia has changed over time.

I am also particularly interested in the relationship between rurally-based ravers, regional identity, and how they view the geography – actual and imagined – of East Anglia. Is there a definable regional rave identity, and if so, how does it differ from other notions of East Anglian identity? Is it possible to define a countercultural ‘rural rave idyll’ in opposition to more romantic and traditional notions of the English ‘rural idyll’?

This research is still in its infancy and in a developmental phase. However, I can see potential for further, more targeted research – as well as collaborations between colleagues who wish to understand the relationship between rave, the rural and regional identity, not only in East Anglia, but elsewhere around the world.

A version of this article was presented at DC23, the first in-person conference hosted by the Dance Cult Research Network, at the University of Huddersfield, October 2023.

List of figures

Header image: Police confront ravers in Thetford Forest, 2020. Originally published by the Eastern Daily Press.
Figure 1: Rave in Thetford Forest, 2018. Originally published by Cambridgeshire News.
Figure 2: Map of East Anglia showing the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk
Figure 3: Poster advertising Barsham Faire 1975.
Figure 4: Map showing the location of Thetford Forest within East Anglia
Figure 5: Rave in Thetford Forest, 2020. Originally published by the Eastern Daily Press.

References

ALSTON, A., 2022. Dancing decadence: The Norfolk rave scene. Staging Decadence website.
ANNISS, M., 2022. Exploring East Anglia’s untold rave history. DJ Magazine online.
BALLICO, C., 2021. Geographically Isolated and Peripheral Music Scenes. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan
BELL, S., 1976. Build another Barsham: a guide to Faire making. Beccles: Sandra Bell
BENNETT, A., 2020. Researching Regional and Rural Music Scenes: Toward a Critical Understanding of an Under-theorized Issue. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Group, pp.367-377
BENNETT, A. et al., 2023. Popular Music Scenes : Regional and Rural Perspectives. Cham: Springer International Publishing
CANNADY, K., 2021. Wild Nights in the Cool North: Embracing Otherness in Icelandic and Faroese Music Festivals, in  Geographically Isolated and Peripheral Music Scenes. Singapore: Springer Singapore, pp.55-74
CANOSA, A. and BENNETT, A. 2021. Urban vibes in a rural setting: a study of the bush doof scene in Byron Shire. Journal of youth studies, 24(3), 388-403
CHAPMAN, T., 2020. ‘Thumping’ music heard as police called to illegal rave. Eastern Daily Press online.
CLOKE, P. et al., 1995. Deprivation, poverty and marginalization in rural lifestyles in England and Wales. Journal of rural studies, 11(4), 351-365
CREED, GW. and CHING, B, 1997. Recognizing Rusticity: Identity and the Power of Place. In CREED, GW and CHING, B (Eds), Knowing Your Place: Rural Identity and Cultural Hierarchy. New York: Routledge, PP1-38
DOWNES, S., 2020. Police on alert amid rumours of Halloween rave. Eastern Daily Press online.
GILBERT, J. and PEARSON, E., 1999. Discographies. London: Routledge
HANNANT, D., 2021. Police ask public to act as bank holiday rave spotters. Eastern Daily Press online.
HETHERINGTON, K., 2000. New age travellers. London: Cassell
HOULDEY, C., 2023. Police finally shut down village abattoir rave after hours of chaos. Eastern Daily Press online.
JOHN, G., 2001. Alternative Cultural Heterotopia and the Liminoid Body: Beyond Turner at ConFest. The Australian journal of anthropology, 12(1), 47-66
LEFEBVRE, H. et al., 2022. On the Rural. New York: University of Minnesota Press
MUGGS, J., Reissue Of The Week: Happy Land. The Quietus.
STONE, CJ., 1996. Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground. London: Faber & Faber
TRUDIE WALTERS and ALLAN STEWART JEPSON, 2019. Marginalisation and Events. Taylor and Francis
WARD, N. and TOMANEY, J., 2002. Regionalism in the East of England. In: J. TOMANEY and J. MAWSON, eds. England. 1st ed. Bristol: Bristol University Press, pp.109-124