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Published: August 31st 2008
Partying peacefully
was not highly regardedThe Preface
Definitely not all weekends are like the one that comes to an end as I'm writing a blog about it in this very moment. On Friday I met Gav and we went to Sydney just to go to some random bars, drinking a few beers before we entered and a litre of Queensland rum before we even left the train. We've been at one bar where you can sit on the roof terrace, having a look at Sydney harbour and it's skyline. We went back to Wollongong with the last train and were drunk enough to discuss linguistic theories whereas the others tried to sleep. As we came back to Gav's place (about 2:00 in the morning) instead of going to bed we started a game of chess and paused it at quarter past five to have a few hours of sleep. There wasn't even one peace on each side taken by that time.
At noon we finished the game in about 15 minuites and I got back home to have a shower and try to pick up all the scattered peaces of my body. Afterwards I headed to the train station again to go back to Sydney
Free Warehouse Party
occupying an empty three-level warehouse on Paramatta rd in Sydney to fill it with seven soundsystems and a good one-thousend visitors - this time with a more serious mission. But first I went to Bonday Beach, which seems to be a quite nice beach in Sydney, although probably very touristic as the infrastructure around it told me. But it has really soft sand, is maybe 1.5 k's long and has a cresent shape - just perfect for surfers. Than I headed to a café/bar/club that carries the name
Civic. I met one of the most hilarious bartenders ever. He is from Prague and came to Australia about two and a half years ago and now he supervises that bar in Sydney CBD. He told me that this was far more laid back than back home, where he was the manager of
Roxy Club Praha. He shouted me my second hot chochlate and it was just unthinkably delicious. Lots of fun, this guy; I'll go back there for shure. But in order not to forget about my mission this pleasure was deemed to be limited in time.
The Warehouse Party
Off I went. After half an hour I was standing on a main road in front of the entrance of a huge warehouse that carried the sign 'for lease'; in
picture from within the warehouse
probably for the first time in years did this building serve a purpose again: being transformed to a club with seven floors. wicked! front of it about 50 people. It's about 11:20 pm. Time to enter the scenery. Maybe it wasn't the best but it definitely was the most massive party I ever went to. Seven floors on three levels, planning to present nearly 100 artists as bands, life acts, djs or vjs. It served more styles of music than most festivals, covering at least the following: Reggae, Ska, Funk, Techno, Minimal, Dubstep, Jungle, Drum'n'Bass, Breakcore, Hardcore and further, more experimental styles I lack the names for. All of the stages had reasonable soundsystems; one of them even more than that, as it seemed to have more power than you needed for having a party on a soccer field. Actually this was good fun (especially at the end), as there were a good 1000 visitors. There're several videos of the party that poped up at youtube. For example
here.
The Way Things Went
It was five past one and I happend to be on the first storey, looking out of the window as I saw two petrol cars pull up in front of the door. Empathetic as I am I went to tell the people downstairs on the main stage and
as expected they were thankful for that information but not very surprised and they didn't look affected either. No five minuites later one single cop was talking to the Dj on this stage, pulling the fader down. The Dj just pulled it up again and the cop left. In that moment I knew what was going to happen. After another half an hour the cops had called for reinforcement and the riot squad was there now as well, making up about 50 cops standing in an row in front of the door, blocking the road to both sides. By that time there policy was that anybody who left the building was hindered to re-enter it. By that time they took responsibility for the lightshows as well, as they put up massive spotlights and even called for a helicopter to cycle above the building. It must have been 20 to 2:oo am that they started to empty the building, beginning with the highest level, which led to the concentration of people in the main floor that was playing the records louder and louder now. It took them till two till everybody who was still in the building was in front of
too difficult a task
that's why they had to drop the gear to switch off the music. I reckon they'd throw rocks at the bulb to swich off the lights at home. the main stage. I guess we were about 350 people left; you could hardly move but all of us were still dancing. As soon as they managed to turn the music down it started to get really loud. An extreme shouting and roaring, as the cops tried to push us towards the exit. Lucky that I learned how to whistle properly. Thanx Reza! it was very useful. You can actually view that on youtube
here. I can't be seen there, but you can spot Norman and Mari. Even though the cops weren't beating people up they haven't been quite soft either and sometimes I saw them going a little further than only pushing and shoving but I think nobody got seriously injured and they didn't bother to arrest people; so their truncheons were mainly used to show off. By the time the building was evacuated it was quarter past two. In this moment I was thinking about what might happen to the soundsystems. Later I got to know that two players and a mixer were destroyed by the cops. In the following it was really accommodating of them to accompany us for another kilometer or so up the street and
it was even more friendly of them to have the helicopter watch our safety on our way. They were really caring for the lot of us, motivating those who got tired of walking in the direction they were kind enough to chose for us. All of that was in the national TV news today. You can watch it on youtube
here. This is Ch9 and they pretty much presented the story of the police (like 1500 visitors), as it is more a kind of a conservative channel than anything else. There is a better one available from ABC news
here. Ch7 broadcasted most of the actions the police were undertaking. You can watch their version
here. I could only film with my bloody handycam but there were some people who were better prepared. I'll try to lay my hands on one of these videos and upload it. At the moment I can only present you newspaper versions of what happened and you can listen to the version of the police by clicking
here.
Here is a quote from theage.com.au:
Police attacked at illegal dance party
* August 31, 2008 - 2:32PM
An illegal dance party where some of more than 1,000 partygoers threw bottles at police may have been organised online, police say.
Actually I saw the ONE bottle fly from the first floor and it didn't hit anybody or anything.
NSW police were called to the party at an abandoned warehouse in Camperdown following noise complaints in the area.
Partygoers threw bottles at police when they tried to clear the crowd out. Repetition is one of the finest literary means; especially in newspaper articles.
Reinforcements were called in from the riot squad, the dog squad and Polair about 1am (AEST) today.
Assistant Commissioner Catherine Burn today admitted that it was a "volatile" situation but said no arrests were made.
"There were altercations with police," she said.
"Unfortunately at this stage we have not been able to identify those people, however, we are reviewing CCTV and reviewing a number of other avenues of inquiry.
"And if we identify those people, and I hope we will, we'll put them before the court."
Police are yet to track down the organisers of the party but suggest it may have been organised through online social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace or via text message.
"There's a suggestion that the party was organised through internet and through SMS and we will be pursuing that," Asst Comm Burn told reporters today. Am I repeating myself when I say they are repeating themselves??
"We are still trying to track down the organisers."
Sydney's western arterial, Parramatta Road, had to be shut down until 3am to clear all of the partygoers from the area.
"It de-escalated very quickly and indeed most of the patrons ... actually left over a period of time and it was quite orderly," Asst Comm Burn said.
"The road was shut down so that we could ensure the safety of moving the people who were moving (on) from the dance party.
"Our priority was the safety of those people.
"It's not something that we want to go in and say, 'out you all go', and spill on to the road.
"We need to control it."
AAP The Epilogue
As it was still damn early I went with Norman (who I got to know at the last party) and Mari Ann. In the beginning there were some other guys with us and they and Mari played fire with a stick on the lawn of Sydney Collage. I always like to watch such things. Afterwards we went to Mari's place and than to some bloody suburb called Pennant Hills or something, which is more than 40 mins from Central. I had a good time with them chatting and walking through the streets and I met some other guys I already saw at the party at that house in that suburb somewhere and so the night was passing quickly. It was about 11 am when I left this house where I had ended up and it wasn't till bloody past four that I found myself under the shower back here in Wollongong. Apparently I was three sheets behind, because I got lost on a street were this is theoretically impossible. But that's typical for me, I didn't mind that.
In Sydney they'd say: ihas bin afuckin long weeken, mate, a tell ya!
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interesting topic?
Hey, it's the first time I've had more than 50 readers of a blog entry in one day. Seems to be an interesting topic.