What Really Happens at Raves (1)

Freedom to Dance, Dallas, Texas – 2001

9:00
Starbuck’s quad shot. Couple of Redbulls. Couple of Ibuprofen.

10:00-11:00
We got to the front entrance and they didn’t check my friends bag, which is nice because we had a bunch of Redbulls and water. We got in. We were approached by a whole bunch of people who just wanted to say hi. We pulled out our “bubble guns” and started walking around, bubbling everyone.

This rave started out great. Cool music, great visuals, great artists, lots of kids. They had a drum and bass room, a hard house room, the big arena was for major DJs. We just walked around all night going to the different rooms, seeing the same people over and over. By the end of the night, things changed…as they always do.

11:00-12:00
We met a 40 year old mother who brought her kids. She was on 5 drops of liquid that hadn’t hit her yet. While she was telling me about herself, her kids walked up and she asked them if they found any, they said no. They were looking for Ecstacy. They asked her if she was “on” yet and she said not yet. They hugged and took off.

I called my friend over who back in his partying days, had taken a total of 32 hits of acid. He told her about that and she did the Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy” bowing thing, and he goes, “uh, it wasn’t a good thing…it was stupid.” and she asked, “You didn’t enjoy it?” and he said, “Well, when you don’t come down for 3 days, and you think you’re gonna be tripping the rest of your life, it’s hard to enjoy anything.” And she grabbed his arm and said, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there.”

Then he said, “If it wasn’t for God, I wouldn’t be here.” And she goes, “yeah, I believe God takes care of me.” So I asked her, “So, do you talk to God?”
And she said, “Not really, I feel like you have to be ready for talking to God.” and I was like, “Do you think you’re ready?” and she said “no” and I said, “You know what? You are ready.” She kinda looked at me and I said, “you should talk to Him, He’s really sweet.” And she thanked me. We talked a little more before her kids came back and she took off. She had started to wig out at the end there. I didn’t see her again that night, but I gave her a flyer.

Our flyers were a two sided, really colorful rave-type flyer. I designed it to look just like a rave flyer, with artists and DJ listed with cities they were from, and an explanation at the bottom about how to get there and what to expect. One site was a party that would take place in Heaven and the other side was a party that would take place in Hell. These flyers were really fun to pass out. Everyone took them and stuffed it in their pockets. That was one thing we could always count on. Just standing at the door with the rest of the promoters handing out flyers as kids walked in.

One time someone asked me if I had any “papers” and I said yeah, I’ve got a paper for you, and handed him a flyer.

12:00-1:00
We were standing at the edge of the main area dance floor with stadium seating bubbling everyone walking by. We noticed a security guard watching a group of kids and then speed over to them and grab one of the girls. She had a film container in her hand. We watched her be taken away and went over to the friends who were left behind. One girl and two guys were left.

We walked over to them to find out what happened. They were freaking out. We asked if they knew her and they said they did. The girl asked us if her friend was going to jail and we told her we didn’t know. We suggested finding the security guards and finding out what was going to happen to her. They were like, “No way, we don’t want to get busted”. So we told them to stay there and we’d find out where she was.

We found out that the cops didn’t have a way to check if the pills were dope or not or what kind of pills they were, so they were just confiscating everything. When they checked her ID, it was fake and they kicked her out. We could see her crying in the parking lot through the front windows.

We went back to where her “friends” were and they had split. We asked God to help us find them and we started walking away from that place, and when we turned the corner, there they were. We sat down with them and told them the deal and we suggested they take off and be with her. She was scared and crying in the parking lot.

They said, “f*** her, man, we came here to party.” A couple of them hadn’t found their drugs yet and they took off. We were upset. We asked them how they would feel if it was them out there in the parking lot and they were suddenly “Concerned”.

They decided (against what we had suggested) that they would get her the keys to the car and let her hang out for the night until the morning. That was going to be at least seven hours.

We took them to the front entrance, my friend took the keys outside. A security guard was letting her use his cell phone to call a taxi and my friend explained the situation to the security guard. He couldn’t believe that her friends were wanting to abandon her. The guard took the phone away from her and hung it up and took her in through the front door. He told the ticket takers that my friend and the girl were with the promoters.

When they reached us inside, her “friends” ran up to her and hugged her and were telling us thanks and stuff. She was crying when she hugged us. We took her aside and told her that those people were not her friends. We explained what had happened while she was outside and it made her cry even more. We talked to her about a real friend she could have in Jesus. She thanked us and then went with her friends. We gave them flyers.

We saw this kind of behavior often. Friends, brothers, sister alike leaving someone behind. It was sickening. These people were claiming P.L.U.R. (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect). This became one of our most common discussions with these kids. How can you do that and claim PLUR?

1:00-2:00
We noticed it was getting really hot. All night we were noticing that kids were filling up their water bottles with water from the sinks. Water was being sold for $3 and it was one of those little tiny bottle. We were making our rounds and we noticed some janitors in the bathroom. They were turning off the water. We were like, “Wait a minute!” We asked the janitors why they were doing it and they said, “Managers told us to.”

So we went to talk to security and they were like, “That’s not our problem.” and so we went to the EMS booth and they were like, “That’s not our problem.” We found the promoters and they had no idea that was happening. We suggested that they turn the water back on and thet they throw out some free water at the crowd. They thanked us and told us they had nothing to do with shutting off the water, but they would get it back on. While we were at it, we asked him if he could take us backstage to talk to our DJ friend (Jeremy Dawson) who was spinning that night. He took us back there and there was beer bottles all over the place, tons of pot smoking and lots of skin. We met with our friend, gave him a Redbull, prayed with him and went back out.

Oh, we stole a couple cases of water and gave it to people in the crowd. We were not “With the promoters” so to speak. This was the first time of many times in the future that we would either sneak backstage and steal water or get permission to do it. We even got in free to a bunch ofraves because we talked to promoters and told them what we were doing.

“We’re watching out for these kids, making sure they don’t overdo it. We’ve been trained in CPR and OD recovery and know what signs to watch for and we educate kids on what the drugs are doing to them. Plus we’re telling them about Jesus.” is what we’d say. Surprisingly, the promoters were all very glad to have us out there. Isn’t that funny? Apparently they didn’t want trouble. That’s smart.

2:00-3:00
We walked out from behind the stage and noticed the “speaker kissers”. We had noticed them before, but it seemed different today. These kids stick their heads right up to the speaker, or they sit down in front of the cabinets with their back up against the horn. It’s crazy. It was so loud from 5 feet away, and every one of the speakers had a kisser. Their eyes are different. Sure people’s eyes are freaked out at raves because of the lights or the drugs or whatever, but these kids are so engulfed by the pulse, they just look right through me.

It was then that I noticed the creepiness of the music. It was happy at the beginning of the event, but it had changed. It had gotten dark and scary. We had been seeing a couple of girl dealers with a load of pills all night. They had offered us stuff early, and there was always a crowd around them. We couldn’t figure out why the cops weren’t busting them, although we couldn’t see any cops around at the moment.

As we made our rounds, we heard a couple of kids talking to a security guard about those two “dealer” girls and it looked like they were gonna do something about it. We were glad.

It’s usually around 3AM that kids start coming down of their original dose and start looking for more. That’s when they decide to “Candy Flip” (acid and ecstacy) or add another roll.

3:00-4:00
Someone gave us a couple of glow sticks. We were being approached by more and more kids wanting to massage us or give us a light show. We would take advantage of the hugs and pray for them as we hugged them.

We were ready to leave, we had to drive back home that night and it’s a 3 hour drive. Also, our redbulls had run out and we were starting to drag. We were tired. We decided to ask the security guard about the dealer girls and they said the had in fact busted them. We were suprised, and glad. Not because they were possibly going to jail, but because they wouldn’t be the cause of kids getting high and possibly OD. We drove home that night in a daze. Of course, we cranked up the trance on the way home.

Later that week, we got a call from my buddy’s dad (who’s a medic). He read in the paper that some kid from Ohio had gone to that rave, bought some pills there, went back to his hotel room in the morning, had a seizure and died.

We had never been that close to a death before. Did we talk to him? Had we given him a flyer? Did we touch him or hug him? Had we prayed for him? We tried to get a hold of his parents, but we couldn’t.

Have a fun day.

What do you think?
1. Do you have a rave story?
2. Did you ever see what we saw?
3. Ever been to a Christian Rave?

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