A year ago I kicked of this series of posts with Dreamscape 15 vs 16 at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. It marked the first time Dreamscape incorporated the adjoining Rollers into their events to double capacity.
Following this they did the same again at Dreamscape 17 vs 18 and Dreamscape 19 and then they hadn't their big outdoor event with Dreamscape 20.
For Dreamscape 21 they held their new years eve event at both The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes and the Royal Showground in Shepton Mallet. For the simple fact it's closer to where I grew up I would have most likely chosen the event at The Sanctuary.
The plan was to link of by satellite to bring in the new year, but it went spectacularly wrong. Each site saw in the new year at a different time. At my first experience at a new years rave I recall seeing my watch say midnight a few minutes before they counted down into the new year.
We've seen the end of an era for a number of things in 1995 and we're about to see the end of another era with this rave. It was the last ever Dreamscape as we knew it. There was a Dreamscape 22 planned in 1996, but Dreamscape owner Murray Beetson sadly died in a car crash prior to the event and the event was cancelled as a result.
Dreamscape did start again later on in 1996 and carried on into the 21st century and has existed in one form or another since, but this was the end of Murrays Dreamscape.
The end of an era doesn't end there either. The tape I have posted is the Force & the Evolution one. As far as I'm aware it was the last Force & the Evolution set. After this it was Force & Styles who already had a few tunes under that name in 1995.
Clarkee played at both events that night, in the main arena at The Sanctuary and in the Tek No Prisoners arena at the Royal Showground.
Elsewhere it was the usual suspects playing, a mixture of hardcore DJs and drum & bass DJs. Dougal played the midnight set at The Sanctuary, so both Northampton DJs who were there from the beginning played a significant part.
That wraps up the raving in 1995 posts. On a personal level there will never be another year like it. If only I was old enough to have actually gone to the raves at the time.
When it comes to Dreamscape events this one was the big one. It was in the middle of the Northamptonshire countryside and attracted around 15,000 people. Whether it would have become and annual thing we will never know as Dreamscape promoter Murray Beetson had sadly passed away by the following summer.
There were 5 arenas, 4 of them being dance music arenas and a chill out arena where Mark EG played a 15 hour set. The main arena was a mixture of hardcore and drum & bass, arena 2 was drum & bass, arena 3 was techno and arena 4 was house.
The tape pack from this event was a 12 pack which featured sets from all 4 arenas. There were 4 house tapes which is quite unusual for a rave tape pack. The DJ's were Jon of the Pleased Wimmin, Tony De Vit, Farley Jackmaster Funk and Pete & Russell, the latter being the promoters of Progress who were hosting the house arena.
I've posted the Clarkee set because I just love the energy from it. I've not featured a Clarkee set in these posts yet, but given he played all the Dreamscapes and was good friends with Murray Beetson it seems appropriate for me to pick his set to post at the big Dreamscape event.
Tape wise we have slightly more drum & bass than hardcore owing to the fact Easygroove does a mixture of hardcore and drum & bass in his set, so we have 5.5 sets of hardcore and 6.5 sets of drum & bass.
These are the new for 1995 drum & bass records:
Dillinja - Non-Believers
Adam F - Circles
Dillinja - Simple
Il Padrino - Il Padrino
The X - New Dawn
DJ Hype & Ganja Max - Rinse Out
Ballistic Brothers - I'll Fly Away
Oblivion - Sands Of Time
Intense - The Sax Lick
Mouly & Lucida - Spirits
Arteq - Amazing
Maximum Style - One 4 Da MC's
Cybotron Feat Dillinja - Threshold
Prizna - River Nile
DJ Trace - Monkeys
Tribe Zero 2 - Death By Sax
Goldie - Still Life
L Double & Shy FX - The Shit
DJ SS - Green
Conroy Smith - Dangerous Jungle
Deadly D - Punani Nuh Fi Nurse
The most notable of these is the first outing of "Circles" by Adam F which would be a Top 40 hit 2 years later. It's one of the usual suspects that dominates the sets though with "The Lighter" by Sound of the Future appearing in 4 of the sets.
Hardcore wise, these were the new for 1995 tunes:
DJ Dougal & Mickey Skeedale - On A High
Dougal & Eruption - I.O.U.
Force & Styles - Harmony
Alchemist & Fade - Keep On Trying
Micado - It's Gonna Be A Fine Night
Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo - Stars
Sandman - Can Can Party
Ferocious - Please Don't Go
DJ Fade - Lost It
SMD - SMD#5
Sy & Unknown - Techno Harmony
DJ Pooch - Don't Stop
DJ Pooch - Volume 11
Higher Level - Feel The Sky
Tim B - Step To It
DJ Isaac & Pagan - 2 Definitions
DJ Demo - '96 Style
One of the notable ones here is "Stars" by Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo which had just entered the Dutch Top 40. It had been a while since SMD#4 had come out, but SMD#5 was here and was the last one of the series. "96 Style" by DJ Demo is basically a remix of "95 Style" by Happy Rollers. I have to say though September does seem a little early to be putting the next year onto a tune name.
There were 2 hardcore tunes which were played the most on the tapes. "On Top" by A Sense Of Summer and "Bust A New Jam" by Seduction & Eruption.
Little did anyone know at the time that this would be the penultimate Dreamscape as we knew it.
It's pretty safe to assume that if I was raving every weekend in 1995 that if there was a Dreamscape on I would have been there. The previous 2 events had been 15 vs 16 and 17 vs 18 to reflect the fact Rollers was being used, but they reverted back to single figures for this one even though Rollers was still being used.
MTV were at this event with MC Magika presenting. I've posted a short clip of this which includes the video to "Love U More" by Paul Elstak. The tune itself features in the Brisk set which is the first instance I've found of it being played at a UK rave. In Paul Elstak's native Holland though it would enter the Top 40 the following week.
Also at this event were Eternity magazine where Dreamscape won their best rave award and Dougal won best DJ and they were presented with the awards on the night.
In the Rollers it was a drum & bass only arena. DJ Hype played in the main arena though, the only drum & bass DJ to do so.
The tape packs were separate happy hardcore and drum & bass ones. In the drum & bass tape packs the tune played the most was "Hearing is Believing" by MA2 which appeared in 5 of the sets. No happy hardcore tune appeared more than 3 times and there are too many to mention which did appear that many times. One that is perhaps worth a mention is "Toy Town" which got played 3 times having debuted the previous week. We'll be hearing a lot more of that.
In the main arena playing happy hardcore were Bunjy and Donovan 'Bad Boy' Smith who are both better known to be drum & bass DJs.
HMS was playing in the "Tek No Prisoners" arena but made it onto the happy hardcore tape pack. He hadn't quite reached his extreme gabber phase yet but the signs were certainly there.
We had more new for 1995 records at this event then any of the other events featured so far with 34 drum & bass tunes and 40 hardcore ones (using the term to cover the Clarkee and HMS sets).
These are the drum & bass ones:
Substance - Rude Girls
Substance - Crazy Horse
Mask - Alright
Bruck Wild - I Will Always Love You
Jack Horner - I Got This Feeling
Dillinja - Music
Natural Mystic - Illusions
Peshay - On The Warpath
Higher Sense - Bizarre
Stakka & K-Tee - Living For The Night
Funky Technicians - Fever
DJ Krust - Set Speed
Northern Connexion - Reel Funk
Kym Mazelle - Genius (Dillinja Remix)
T Power - The Mutant Remix - Rollers Instinct
Darkman - I'm Gonna Get You
B-Jam - Funkula
Adam F - Lighter Style
Regulators - Hero's Welcome
Urban Jungle - Anything
Desired State - Here And Now
Rogue Unit vs The Dream Team - Good To U
The Outsider - The Mash Up
DJ Ron - New School Beats
The Guyver - Feel
Sense Of Direction - Simplicity
Rude Bwoy Monty - Warp 9 Mr Zulu
DJ Stretch & DJ Ride - Selector Jungle
PFM - The Mystics
Q Project - The Instrumental
Oblivion - Sands Of Time
Model & HLS - Flights
Source Direct - Exit 9
DJ Trace - By Any Means Necessary
and these are the hardcore ones:
DJ Hixx - Tailor Made
Bass-D & King Matthew - Take Me Higher
Justin Time - Help Me
Unknown Artist - The Crawler
Sons Of Aliens - Wicked Games
DJ Isaac - Fucking E
Scotchman - Self Destruct
Future Viper - Can't Feel The Beat
DJ Scorpio - The Other Side Of Reality
Delta 9 - Listen
DJ Manu Le Malin - M18
Sub Source - Hardcore Euphoria
Scott Brown - Dum Dooby Dum
Paul Elstak - Luv U More
Scott Brown - Gazometer
Scott Brown vs. Rab S - Rock The Party
Infernus - Hardcore Destiny
DJ Demand - Jumpin' Pumpin'
DJ Fade - Now You Know
DJ Poppy - Yes
Omar Santana - Somebody Scream
Ralphie Dee - Don't Worry
Dr. Phil Omanski - Feeling
Diss Reaction - Jiiieehaaaa
Cyclopede - Hyper
DJ Producer - Guess My Religion
Simon C - Scream And Shout
Brainiac - Put Your Hands Together
Scott Brown - Ready For War
Obliterator - Wicked Drums
D-Tox - Trancer
Kinetic Pleasure - Higher
Dougal & Seduction - Cross Your Mind
Midas - Nostalgia
Sy & Unknown - Love For '95
Mercurial - Hear Dis
DJ Pooch - 4 The Floor Recordings - Volume 9 (A)
DJ Seduction - Itch It Up
Force & Styles - Down 2 Love
DJ Pooch - How It Started
One of the notable ones here "Down 2 Love" by Force & Styles Whilst both Force and Styles had tunes previously as part of Force & the Evolution and A Sense Of Summer, this was the first Force & Styles tune that appears to have been played out. It's nowhere near their best known and doesn't sound like a typical Force & Styles record either, but we're seeing them starting as a duo.
You cant definitely sense that Dreamscape were the rave of the moment, but what came next was the biggest Dreamscape of them all. More on that when the time comes.
After kicking off 1995 at Dreamscape 15 vs 16 here we are at the next Dreamscape event. This was the first Dreamscape tape pack I owned. Once I acquired the Dreamscape 15 vs 16 tape pack at a later date I noticed that things had changed a lot in the space of a little over 2 months.
There were obviously tunes that appeared at both events and with the benefit of internet track lists I have the numbers. We have 20 happy hardcore tunes and 19 drum & bass tunes. There were also 6 happy hardcore tunes which were remixes of tunes that appeared at the previous event and 4 drum & bass tunes.
That does sound a lot, but when you consider we have 12 hours worth of tunes on the tapes it's not that much really. When looking at individual DJ's who played at both events, Swane had the most tunes he played at both events with 4. Some DJs don't have any.
Quite surprisingly this is the first rave featured this year to have Hixxy playing at therefore I've chosen his set to post. He's one of the biggest names of the modern era, but this was a pre-Toytown Hixxy. The MC on the set is Sharkey and during the set he introduces what was the new record label from Hixxy and Dougal called Essential Platinum.
The tape pack was aimed at those who liked both happy hardcore and drum & bass as each tape has a happy hardcore DJ one side and a drum & bass DJ the other side.
Even though I would become more of a happy hardcore fan in the end it was the drum & bass sets that I was listening to more at the time. One tune that sticks out to me from this pack was "The Lighter" by Sounds of the Future. This samples the theme from "Love Story" and was around the same time we had the "Tums" advert where they were singing "tum tum tum tum tum" to the "Love Story" theme. This is the most played drum & bass tune appearing in 5 of the 8 sets.
These were the new for 1995 drum & bass tunes that appeared:
Notorious - Feel Love
Mental Power - Deep Soul
Sounds Of Life - Hidden Rooms
DJ Hype - Freestyles Of Bass
DJ Rap & Voyager - Burning Love
DJ Harmony - So Real
Scratch C & Shaka - Dread Ah Star
Cloud 9 - Snow
Happy hardcore wise, quite appropriately given the title the tune which appeared the most was "95 Style" by Happy Rollers which appeared in 4 of the sets.
There were the new for 1995 happy hardcore tunes which appeared:
Billy Bunter - New Sensation
Force & The Evolution - Show Me Heaven
DJ Brisk - Airhead
Dougal & Mickey Skeedale - Emerald
A Sense Of Summer - Around The World
Psy-Quest - I Believe
Bass X - Morphine
Scott Brown - Do What Ya Like!
Lord Of Hardcore - Work That Sucka
Happy Tunes & Hixxy - Set Me Free
Brisk vs Rebel Alliance - Adrenaline Flowing
Midas - Meltdown
DJ Pooch - Take Control
Ravers Choice - Givin' It All I Got
The happy hardcore sets were generally leaning towards the English tunes as opposed to the Scottish and Dutch ones. The exception to this is the Brisk set where the first 8 tunes are all Scottish or Dutch including the opening track "XTC Love" Bertocucci Feranzano who is Dutch, though back then I thought he was Italian.
The Slipmatt set goes Scottish and Dutch towards the end, maybe it continued in that way once the tapes stopped recording. The Ramos and DJ SY/Seduction tapes don't have any Dutch or Scottish tunes on at all.
There is also a techno 2 pack from the night which was supposed to come with the 8 pack but it never came with mine.
The Daz Saund set is a very international one with tunes from 7 different countries, most notably Germany and Belgium. Colin Dale was roughly half English half international. The Loftgroover and Clarkee sets were leaning more towards Scotland and Holland though the first 4 tunes on the Clarkee set were by Elation who are English and come from the same EP.
Dreamscape were pretty much the biggest rave of the moment. This is evident from the tapes and line up. It was just as much a happy hardcore rave as it was drum & bass and when I learned that tape packs were a thing the first one to spring to mind was Dreamscape.
It's therefore inevitable that Dreamscape 19 will feature once the time comes.
With my Bonkers series of posts now finished and my best year of the charts posts nearing the end it's time for a new series of posts on Thursdays for 2022.
1995 was my first full year as a raver but unfortunately I wasn't old enough to actually go raving. Instead of moaning about being born too late though, I thought it would be interesting to see where I would have gone raving in 1995 had I done it every weekend. As this is something that never happened I'm not going to think of practical considerations such as location (though I'll stick to the UK), price or other commitments I may have had.
At the same time I'll be listening to tapes from said events if I can find any to talk about the music being played.
We begin by looking at Dreamscape 15 vs 16. Had I been old enough there is little doubt this is where I would have been to see in 1995. It was just over 3 years since Dreamscape 1 had been held at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes, but at this event they were using the adjacent Rollers building for the first time.
There were 2 tape packs for this event and each pack had half the picture on the cover. I became quite familiar with the 2nd pack without owning it via listening to other peoples tapes on their walkman. The tape which stood out to me in particular was the Pilgrim tape.
In those days acquiring the tapes was easier said than done. No internet to buy them from and you couldn't get them from the local Our Price either. Some time later the opportunity came to buy both packs from someone who was no longer into rave. There was another person interested in those packs, but I was determined to own the 2nd pack for the Pilgrim tape alone so I offered more money for the 2nd pack whilst the other person bought the first pack.
The rave scene had already split into happy hardcore and jungle by this point and there were tapes which were firmly either in the happy hardcore or jungle camp. The Pilgrim tape though was in both camps and Pilgrim himself would become more of an old skool DJ as opposed to a happy hardcore or jungle one in years to come.
The best tune on the Pilgrim tape is the first one "Easin On" by A Sense Of Summer. This was the other side of the much more popular "On Top" and I've not heard it on any other set. I played the Pilgrim tape so much over the years that it eventually broke. Fortunately the internet was a thing by then so I've still been able to listen to it since.
One of the jungle tunes on the Pilgrim set is "Champion Sound" by Q Project which was one of my favourite jungle records at the time. Clearly I was not alone as I've counted that it appears 9 times across the 2 packs.
We're in an era where the distinction between happy hardcore and jungle isn't as clear cut as it would become. The happy hardcore music was still breakbeat for a start.
An example of this is a tune that appears on the Ramos mix is "Sweet Memories" by Rhythm For Reasons. Ramos was a happy hardcore DJ and most of the tunes on his set are clearly happy hardcore. Rhythm For Reasons though is an alias of DJ SS, a jungle DJ and released on Formation Records, a jungle label and has been played in jungle sets. It doesn't firmly sit in either camp though.
On the first pack we have sets from Clarkee and Scorpio both of whom are known for playing hard techno. There is less of a distinction though at this point in time, the notable difference between their sets and the others is there's more Dutch music on them.
An incident that did happen that night was that someone let off CS gas, something which really pissed off MC Joker. All I can really find about MC Joker on the internet is a reference to him calling the person who let off the CS gas and their mother an arsehole.
There will be more Dreamscape events that will feature this year, they were pretty much the biggest rave at the time. There will no doubt be other events at The Sanctuary that will feature too and this is a venue I did actually end up going to once I did start raving.
