As Time Out’s nightlife editor, photographer Dave Swindells was there when rave hit London in 1988. His new book captures the first, frenzied nights of the ‘second summer of love’
Late one Thursday in March 1988, Dave Swindells walked into a tiny, sweat-drenched club in central London and found himself present at the birth of a new cultural revolution.
The venue, behind Charing Cross station, was packed with revellers dancing energetically to a variant of house music that had recently emerged out of Chicago, typified by squelchy sound effects from a Roland TB-303 synthesiser. Spurning the dressier fashions of the 80s London club scene, many in the crowd were wearing baggy jeans and T-shirts or jumpers with loud, clashing patterns. There was a euphoria in the air that couldn’t be explained by musical appreciation alone. “I got that instant hit,” Swindells recalls. “This was really something big happening. I just felt the whole year was instantly transformed.”
Acid House As It Happened by Dave Swindells is published by Idea, £50.
