Another Rave Review
August 14, 2025 at 04:00PM
In an abridged excerpt from Patrick Galbraith’s book, Uncommon Ground, we go on a journey to an illegal free party in the West Country. Getting to the location is reminiscent of a treasure hunt, with clues sporadically released down the “party line,” and you will end up hoping to find the party spot as much as Galbraith. Upon arrival—up a mountain—Galbraith deftly sets the scene: Pouring rain. Bizarre characters. Throbbing beat. Come find out why the party isn’t over.
The tide is right out beneath the Severn Bridge and the mud is black. Cars tear past us, girls in bright pink fur and topless boys. By the time we get to Port Talbot, the last of the sun has gone down over the Atlantic and fumes from the steelworks are lit up purple and blue, drifting into the low clouds. At the Asda in Swansea, the car park is alive. Women in fishnets are doing laughing gas and people are sitting together on plastic camping chairs. I go inside and queue up for cigarettes. The lady at the till, pointing towards the aisles, asks the guy in front of me what we’re all doing. She has never, she says cheerfully, ‘seen anything quite like it’. He tells her, as though he has no idea what she’s talking about at all, that none of us are together. He’s just staying at the Travelodge across the car park ‘to visit family’.
By 9.45pm, three police cars roll into the car park, lights flashing. ‘So what happens now?’ I ask a toothless Bristolian in a Hawaiian shirt, who’s been telling me about keeping chickens in Portugal before his wife left him and took their dog. ‘We wait,’ he replies, ‘then we scramble.’ I head back to the car and the three police patrol cars drive round and round for 20 minutes while everyone hangs tight. The car park is still filling up and a red VW, with sun-bleached paint, pulls up next to us. ‘It’s the young ones,’ the driver explains to Jack. ‘It’s the kids. They draw attention. They can’t help themselves.’ At 10pm, the party line hasn’t been updated, but horns start going and people start pinging past us. We follow and end up one car park over, next to the petrol station. ‘We just spread out,’ a young northern guy tells us, ‘we spread right out and then we go.’ The police roll round in front of us and the officer in the passenger seat takes a picture of everyone’s licence plate.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/08/14/illegal-rave-party/
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