ForceWA is a fucking joke

For those of you who don't understand why doofers take such pains to ensure that we are not lumped in the same group as ravers, I suggest you attend a 'Bush Rave' some day.

The location was not too hard to find, despite the best efforts of the simplistic directions - There was no gate, no directions on where to park, or for that matter, any lighting along the way. i am astonished nobody was struck by a car during the night.

The night, though, was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I was sober, roaming about between dance floor, fire, and the various clusters of cars purveying fine chemicals and chatting with those I knew, and meeting a lot of those I didn't. It was cool.

It was when you looked closer, though, that things started to come apart at the seams. A doof's sound system is usually extremely well thought-out, in terms of placement, specifications and quality. ForceWA had a large pile of black boxes on a trailer off to one side, pointing over the dancefloor, with no visible regard to superposition, constructive interference, etc... No to mention that they were totally exposed to the elements, and had a sudden shower come from nowhere they would have been quite thoroughly ruined. The generator was only a few metres behind the DJ booth - Now, of course you should keep it as close as possible to avoid losses over long cable runs, but this was ridiculous, as the genny was drowning out all possibility of speech back there, as well as most of the music.

Just before the sun rose, I decided it was about time I got resoundingly high. Having previously dosed well in excess of 1500ugs (10+ drop doses are my usual preference) I did not think there would be any issue having a five-drop. Truth be told, I had not slept in more then five days, and I didn not know what effect (if any) it would have on the experience.

Either not sleeping magnifies LSD or this is the strongest batch yet, but within forty five minutes of dancing to some very enjoyable D&B I found myself having to sit down, struggling to roll a cigarette and trying to hold back tears. My saviour appeared, rolled my smoke for me and sat and talked for a while. Then, more dancing. I was having a great time. Then, the sun began to rise, the DJ changed, and the whole world went to hell.

I'm not sure whose idea it was that Gabber and Terrorcore were to be the tunes for the morning, but it was a downright fucking retarded one. To be perfectly frank, I don't even consider them music after that episode - Angie and I had to walk for some distance until we were far enough away that the screaming and 180bpm bass beat (which is about all most of the tracks consisted of) were no longer physically assaulting my brain. We watched the scene unfolding, people yelling, some angry, some just enjoying themselves, bottles and cigarette butts everywhere.

I like heavy, intense music -At the right time. Fast-paced nightpsy, gabber, dark D&B, the whole darker side of dance music is most definetly a 'night time' theme - Morning are for funky tunes, when your pills have worn off and all you want to do is funk around and chill and smile at everyone.

The area this event was held in was something of curious beauty, once. It had obviously been strip-forested, for the ground was mostly gravel with the occasional large pile of felled trees, before fading into bushland. By the morning, it looked like dresden, with cars crushing the new foliage struggling to grow, people clambering over it all, pulling it up to fuel the fire. It looked and sounded like a riot was about to break out, as dozens of angry, drunk ravers up to their eyeballs in speed stomped out to an amateurish combination of Anal Cunt-esque vocals and a rhythm section that sounded like a bag of hammers being dropped into a rainwater tank and kicked down he stairs.

This is not just me complaining about the music because it's not my thing - Hell, I'm not a big fan of anything much over 150bpm usually, but there was some really excellent tunes being played that night which I got thoroughly stuck into. But the shit being played from sun-up simply highlighted the failings of this scene.

I watched a beautiful area of bushland torn apart by selfishness, indulgences of violence. I watched ugly people expressing themselves in base, primitive fashion - it all boiled down to simple gratification of their animal instincts - Eat, fuck, get high. If that's wat they want to do, more power to them. If they're not interested in developing their conciousness, so be it.

I like to party - I'm not here to shit on you because I'm some uptight 35y/o square who doesn't 'understand the music', and I'm not here to take some nancy reagan-esque judgement on drug use, because, shit. I like to get high, too. But that's kind of the whole point. We all like to party. We all like to get high. But we're all human beings, and that means showing respect for each other, and our environment.

If you want to act like animals, do so. By all means, enjoy yourself. But don't go out and destroy our bushland to do so.

ForceWA, stay in the city. You clearly don't understand how to run an event in the bush and your patrons are nowhere near mature enough to party there responsibly.