You are watching a report that came out in 1989 that showed the police rating a club where music was played and drugs were taken. Although the clubs were not legal in London, many thousands attended what were called Raves. 1989 was a special year in British music history as these new clubs presented an experience that included a style of music as well as a heavy use of ecstasy and other drugs. Acid House is regarded as one of Britain’s first Ecstasy clubs. These clubs created a new music style. Drugs were supplied to attendees, especially Ecstasy although mushrooms and LSD was also present. The result was a kind of a punk music. The music, the clubs, and the drugs completely changed how people acted. They said that football hooligans would fill up the clubs and be hugging each other. Celebrities danced alongside teenagers from working-class neighborhoods, bankers became gay, and no one seemed to care.

1988 was a tough time in Britain. There was Margaret Thatcher closing down the British mines and the steel plants and the labor party and others reacting. It was a serious time. . But Acid House changed that. “Suddenly you could go to a place and express yourself through music. You felt like you were part of something really special.”

To the country’s tabloid press and many in the public this new music that was sweeping the country was headache-inducing and seemed to be enjoyable only to club attendees on Ecstasy. The Daily Mail called it “the biggest threat to the health and welfare of Britain’s youngsters since the crazy drug cult of the ’60s.”

But to the British teenagers and 20-somethings gathering in these raves, that admonishment was a compliment. They christened 1989 as the Second Summer of Love. To them, 1989 was another moment when a particular music, people and drug came together and changed a country’s culture.

I never attended one of these clubs but some of my documentary filmmakers colleagues attempted to film what the experience was like. From my perspective, all of them failed. The light show never look the same as what the real experience was. The sound wasn't quite as intense. And watching people on drugs experiencing ecstasy isn't the same thing as being there and taking it. Although when filmmakers tried to film on Ecstasy, what they mostly did was get wobbly and out of focus camera work which they later screened and rejected as amateurish. Nonetheless, the police reaction to these kinds of teenage places was strong and they attempted to shut the Acid House down and stop those from attending from behaving as they were behaving. To some extent, the police succeeded as the era rather quickly ended for whatever reason.

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