Hell,I go back a lot further than THAT!Used to walk around Haight Street in SF in 1967 and you knew right away who the "speed freaks"were-scrawny white kids pulling on their dirty hair while swilling the telltale quart of CHOCOLATE MILK and asking for"spare change"
Riverman
The worst part about the rave scene in those days was being around all the people on really hard drugs. You don't know how many people I saw with their eyes bugging out of their heads, "rolling" on Extacy, just wanting random people to touch them! "YO MAN GIVE ME A BACKRUB!" Sheesh, get out of my face weirdo! You'd see like 6 kids all sitting around in a circle just... TOUCHING each other all over, it was really weird. All the best parties were totally illegal and it was a drug free-for-all, for the most part. Total open-air drug markets, people buying selling and taking any number of pills and powders.
I always went to parties with people who weren't sticking coke and crystal up their noses, or popping pills. We weren't raver kids, we were the odd crew, the only long-haired rock & roll kids there, with joints stuffed in our socks and vodka in our water bottles. Yes, probably not the wisest thing to do, but hey I was like 16, 17 at that point and I wasn't too smart.
After a few years the whole "rave" scene got really commercialized and they started having parties at clubs, with security, wierdo Italian mafiosa wannabe kids with perfume and tons of gold chains, and tons of other stupid kids. It just wasn't the same after that. I don't even think people still have raves anymore. I haven't been to one since probably 1999.
I don't miss being around all of those drugs, but I had a lot of fun in those days.