Ravers Revel Right 'Round The Clock

It's The Morning After The Morning After

Published On: 2000-01-02
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)


If you welcomed 2000 naked and shouting like a drunken maniac, but then petered out and hit the sack by 4 a.m., you're a wimp and a wuss by rave party standards.

Revellers welcomed the new year at a rave dance party at the Northlands Sportex scheduled to go until 9 a.m. yesterday. But instead of going to bed afterward, some trip-happy souls headed to the Therapy club at 10028 102 Ave. for the after-party party. It started at 10 a.m. and wasn't scheduled to end until six this morning.

"I've been doing this since 11 last night, just before New Year's," said one Therapy partier at 4 p.m. yesterday.

Was he having a good time? "Oh, not bad."

Asked if he could enjoy raving for 17 straight hours without taking a tab of the drug Ecstasy, he answered simply, "No."

Another party animal doubted he could dance until 6 a.m.

"I can usually only go for about 10 hours," he said. "Then I get tired."

Around four p.m. about 150 people were crowded into Therapy and moving frantically to very long dance tracks with phrases like "Big love!", "Hold me!" and "What's wrong with you?" shouted over fast electronic drum beats.

Muscular males went bare-chested - the thinner guys kept their shirts on.

While many of the dancers expressed themselves by shaking shiny green, pink and blue Day-Glo sticks, one kid went a step further by sucking on a baby soother and shaking his Teletubbies backpack shaped like Laa Laa.

The ravers had to do without alcohol, since Therapy sells only bottled water and candy. A Sun reporter was asked to leave by the club's manager, who had banned photographers outright.

"We let the media in here and a couple of them made it look like we were nothing but a drug den," he said. "So you can't talk to people in here."