RAVERS from the late 80s and early 90s can enjoy a blast from the past as Blackburn Museum hosts a snapshot into the town’s rave scene.
Blackburn Rave Culture is set to storm the Museum street-based venue, looking at both the cultural impacts and the legacy of the acid house music scene.
The exhibition is a flashback to the 1989 to 1990 period and features the joys the people experienced at the dance events as well as the hysteria and mainstream panic created by the press.
Blackburn had thousands of people gathering in the town to join the night scene each weekend, and the showing has a live recording wall where folk are encouraged to share reflections, stories and opinions about the illegal underground parties.
The project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which granted 12 young people to film, interview and record people who were involved in these events.
The documentary, which features 20 people who were involved musically at the time, was edited by the 12 youngsters who learned filming and audio skills that have contributed to the final display of the exhibition.
Neil Shackleton, from Boomtown Basement Records, who also organised the exhibition, said: “East Lancashire and Blackburn particularly was the site of a musical revolution that changed the music scene throughout the world.
“Abandoned buildings were turned into theatres of house music away from mainstream nightclubs and bars that dominated the British cultural nighttime.
“The history of this and why it happened in a deprived old mill town, which spawned into what tens of thousands of people now do every weekend in sanitised legal versions.
“A final film screening will be shown in The Bureau Centre for the Arts after the museum exhibition has finished. There will be free DVDs given away as well as a celebration event at a warehouse venue within Blackburn.
“The exhibition and event are organised by Boomtown Basement Records who provide musical training and workshops for people as well as releasing music themselves via the record label.”
The exhibition will run until Saturday, August 20, and entry is completely free.
For more information about the showing visit: blackburnmuseum.org.uk.
