The year 1999 was said to have been the major explosion of the global rave culture. Just as the life of stars in our cosmos, the year 1999 built up to one of the last years of the main sequence which carried across the span of a decade. Interest had grown dramatically in the dance & rave scene despite many ups & downs.
Since 1991 an event called Winter Music Conference had taken place in Miami's South Beach. The conference was aimed at record labels, producers, and dj's. However as time grew on the event became a catalyst for the burgeoning South Beach club scene. In 1999 the first Ultra Music Festival took place on the Saturday immediately after the conference, which was hosted directly on South Beach.
Gatecrasher, although founded in 1993, had become very popular at The Republic in Sheffield, UK. The club had been primarily house and techno oriented, however by the end of the nineties it was a haven for trance artists like Judge Jules, Paul Oakenfold and Van Dyk. Similarly, trance was becoming a bigger phenomena on a global scale.
After the release of Paul Oakenfold's "Tranceport" in November of 1998, trance hit a breaking point. The CD featured many trance songs that were recieving a lot of play at the time, featuring artists like The Light, Paul Van Dyk, Transa, Three Drives on a Vinyl and Binary Finary. The follow-up to the series, Tranceport 2, was mixed by Dave Ralph and featured artists like Oliver Leib, X-Cabs, Sasha, Andy Ling, and Fragma.
DJ Mag, which began featuring a Top 100 dj's of the world poll in 1997 started with only 700 people voting in the poll. The first two years, Carl Cox was nominated the #1 DJ in the world the first year of the poll. In 1998 Paul Oakenfold was nominated #1 with Carl Cox and Judge Jules falling behind. In 1999, Paul Oakenfold claimed the #1 spot again.
Inside party scene, rave had become an often unspoken religion for many. While there are no formal priests in the rave culture, DJ's were often thought of as the equivalent as they were technically the head of proceedings, administering music and serving as the conductor of an inner journey of either thoughts or emotions. Drugs often contributed to the journey and especially by the end of the decade many people were sold on going to raves for "the experience." The experience included friends, drugs, music and an intense journey deep into one's self.
While the dj used records to take people on a journey, the music became a common line of communication & understanding for most partygoers. It did not matter who a person was, what nationality or religion or sexual preference there was a common sense of acceptance. It was a promoter's job to ensure that no bad vibes would enter parties, therefore most flyers in the late nineties featured two acronyms on flyers which stated the basic norms for the events. The first was Right Of Admission Refusion (ROAR) which meant that anyone could be turned away from an event. Often this meant that bad attitudes or people that looked untrust-worthy would not be permitted into the event.
The second acronym stood for Peace, Love, Unity & Respect (PLUR) which is said to have originated by techno dj, Frankie Bones, in the early 90s after a fight broke out at one of the Storm Raves. Frankie was said to have picked up the microphone and shouted "I want to see some peace, love & unity here or I'll break your fucking necks!" It was not until some time after this incident that the "R" was added to include respect. The full acronym was not coined until after Laura La Gassa had written an essay about "Peace, Love, Unity & Respect." This was an essay that she was inspired to write after her husband, Brian Behlendorf, came to visit her in 1993 to attend a renegade party in Washington, DC at RFK Stadium. Prior to the party, Brian had given her a booklet written by DJ Geoff of Wicked Soundsystem in San Francisco called "The Four Pillars of the House Community." After her essay was written, a raver on the ne-raves mailing list signed an email with "PLUR" and since then the term had caught on like wildfire and continues to be used to this day, primarily with candyravers.
This session was mixed live near the break of the millenium. It was inspired by a spiritual experience I had of my own, which has remained over the years to be the best day of my life. This was also during a period where I had switched (temporarily) from being interested in primarily techno and house to a growing interest in progressive trance which stayed the course of a three years crossing through the millenium.
3 Phase feat. Dr. Motte - Der Klang Der Familie (King of Spin Remix)
The M&M's - Four Play
Timo Mass vs. Ian Wilkie - Twin Town (Main Mix)
Joshua Ryan - Pistolwhip
Dj Remy - Backstabber
Mea Culpa - Spiritual Light
Aurora - Hear You Calling (Fire & Ice Remix)
Transa - Enervate (ETS Remix)
