What Really Happens at Raves (3)

Zenfest, Dallas, Texas 2001

We were at this outdoor rave for 13 hours. There were about 21,000 people there.

4:00pm – 10:00pm
We arrived early. It was hot. This thing was huge. There were 5 areas playing music. The main area featured Rabbit in the Moon among others…what a crazy show. The other large area featured Tiesto, Skylab, DJ Shadow and others. We spent the most time here. The largest tent featured Drum and Bass all night the likes of DJ Rap, Dylan and others. Uberzone was there that night, so were the Bassbin Twins.

The home base for our team ended up being right next to one of the 8 EMS tents. Each tent was stocked with water, gurneys, coolers, cots, paramedics and at least one ambulance. This was surprising to us. We had never seen this much precaution taken.

We hung out, ate the food we had brought, danced some. Mostly just kept cool. We met some really great people. In fact, we met a girl who we’d see later that night. She was passing out pieces of “Dentyne Ice” gum to anyone who wanted some. We ate some and it was HOT. Man it freaked us out how minty it was. Well, right as she noticed out mouths were on fire, shegot on with why she was giving out the gum. She said the intensity of the gum sobered people up for a second so they could hear what she was saying. She wasn’t Christian, but she was against drug use. We gave her some flyers to pass out.

At one point, a dragonfly flew past my buddy and he decided to act like it was tied to a string he was holding. He started chasing it around and it really looked like he had a string attached to it. That and juggling with glow sticks later that night really got people’s attention. It got us into some great conversations.

Many of the kids were asking us for drugs. Actually, almost everyone that passed us was looking for something. We took every opportunity to try to convince them not to roll or drop or whatever it was they were gonna do.

By 9:00, the music got louder, the lights got turned on and everyone got crazier.

10:00pm – 12:00pm
The lines to buy water were huge. It was not so much a line actually than just an area to wait and take a step every once in a while. We took this opportunity tostrike up conversations. Everyone within 5 feet could hear what we were talking about, and kids on drugs like to talk. I talked to a kid about his brother dying from an overdose. This kid’s parents put the blame on the kid I was talking to cuz he was older. He started crying and admitted that he missed him and maybe it was his fault. I told him that God loved Him no matter what he did. Man that was intense.

We ended up waiting in line, talking to people, buying a water and go to the end of the line and talk to more kids while we drank the water.

We got talking to some other Christians who were passing out flyers. We talked and prayed. That was good.

We got talking with a kid who’s sister was a dealer’s girlfriend. He told us all sorts of stuff. He told us that Dealers have their girlfriends hold the stash while he makes the deals and then goes and hugs and kisses on the girl while he reaches in her pockets and gets the stuff. This way he’s not holding. He pointed her out to us. We asked him if we could pray for her and he agreed.

It’s really interesting. I don’t remember getting one decline when we asked someone if we could pray with them. We did a lot of praying.

This kid also told us ways to hide drugs so you can get them in even if the pat you down.

We hung out with him for a while. He felt alone. He was a good boy and loved his sister. He didn’t want anything to happen to her.

At one point, some cops passed by us and looked like they were focused on one kid which we assumed was a dealer. The kid saw them and reached into his pocket and threw his pills in the air. This caused everyone in the area to scramble like a piñata had just broken open. The dealer darted into the crowd and disappeared. I guess he got away.

During Tiesto, I thought they needed to turn it up, so I made my way back to the sound booth and suggested to the sound man that he crank it…especially the bass. He cussed me out. He told me I had messed up my ears and was tripping on drugs. Whatever. I hung out anyway, thinking that if he turned away, I’d reach over and crank the main levels.

Just a few moments later, Tiesto’s manager came up to me and told me I needed to tun it up. I guess he thought I was the sound man. I told him I wasn’t the sound man, but I had just told the guy to turn it up. He told me something about these guys are used to rock shows and don’t know what their doing. He went into the sound booth and did just what I was going to do, and the crowd yelled and screamed in approval.

12:00am – 1:00am
Things started getting crazy. We started hearing that some dealers on the grounds were selling bad rolls. We talked to the cops and they were pissed. We talked to the paramedics and they were pissed. We talked to the promoters and they were pissed too. We heard them make some announcements over the speakers, but it was too late. Everyone had already bought and taken their pills.

Even if there was a risk of bad drugs, some of these kids would have taken them anyway. We found that most of these kids were wreckless in their usage. We met a girl who was on the most ludicrous cocktail I had ever heard of. I think the list went something like: Meth, K, Acid, E, pot and I think she was drunk too. He said it was her birthday and she would take anything I would give her.

I think that might have been the first of a few times I cried at a rave. She K-Holed later that night. It was a bad scene. We stayed with her for a while, but she just wanted to dance, and we lost her.

When we met back up at our base, the EMS tent was full of kids. One girl had a migraine that was triggered by a second roll. One guy had peed his pants and was sleeping or something. Another kid couldn’t breathe, well, he was breathing, he was just convinced he couldn’t.

1:00am – 3:00am
We decided to hang out and pray for the kids in the EMS tent.

The thing that bothered me the most was something that happened at least 10 times that we saw. This was where a brother or boyfriend or best friend or sister would bring someone to the tent, tell the medics what drugs the person they brought had taken and then split. They would leave them in the tent by themselves.

We chased these people down and at first were nice saying stuff like: “Hey, don’t you think they need you to be there with them?” Then after a few of those people replied with, “No, man, I came to party!” We got upset.

I don’t think we yelled at these people, but I think it got pretty close. I just couldn’t believe that an older brother would bring his flipping out little brother and then leave him.

This changed the mood of the night. We became counselors in the tent and held hands of people who’s minds were racing or thought they were going to die. We prayed so much that night.

3:00am – 4:00am
This is when the big overdoses started happening. We saw seven ODs, and heard later that week of at least 3 more.

I had never seen this before. These kids couldn’t speak. They had no idea where they were. They couldn’t look at me for very long. They would suddenly try to stand up or start screaming. They were freaking out.

We couldn’t deal with this for very long, so we left the tent and began walking around the grounds. We had VIP passes because we knew the promoters, so we’d go into the VIP tent and take cases of water and hand them out to the kids who were dehydrating. There were many.

One guy we found in the middle of the dance area grinding the enamel off his teeth with his legs all twisted, his hands in a deformed freeze and his pants at his ankles. I asked him his name and he grunted at me through his teeth. I asked some kids to help me and they were like, “do you know him?” and I said no, but I needed help to get him to the EMS tent. One of them grabbed his arm so he wouldn’t fall while I unhooked his pants tangled at his ankles and completely wet from urine, and then when I was finished getting them off his ankles, there were a bunch of kids just standing there watching. Just staring.

This kid was trippin’ so hard, he couldn’t untangle his legs or turn his head away from the lasers and lights on stage (which admittedly were cool). I finally realized I had to walk him backwards so he could keep looking at the lights. Kids along the very crowded way just looked and pointed. He never got any better. They took him to the hospital. He probably didn’t come alone, But he’s gonna wake up alone.

We prayed so much that night. Just about everyone we talked to told us that they knew they needed God. They really wanted our help.

4:00am – 5:00am
We took the last hour to walk around the ground. We walked the fences and the outskirts of where the kids were. There were bodies everywhere. Not dead bodies, just sleeping bodies. We woke people up and asked them if they were OK. They all saw that we were trying to help. They all appreciated that we were there.

We were blown away. We had seen some of this before, but never at this magnitude.

It was hard to fall asleep that night.

Have a good day.

What do you think?
1. Ever been to a rave?
2. Do you know someone who has overdosed?
3. Does this story sound familiar?

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