[bonestamp2]

I know what you mean, and I wish I kept at it. I DJ'd a couple raves back then but it was something that any of my friends were into so I naturally fell out of it even though I loved it so much. I later got back into it briefly and made a few house and trance tracks when computer DAWs became popular.

There was a sense of freedom and optimism on the dance floor that I've never found anywhere else. I made songs like the songs that I most liked to dance to. Most of it came from Europe back then, but I wish I followed my heart, or at least spent half my time following my heart.

I feel bad for the kids in the video. In my day, and maybe yours, it would have been very unusual to see a cellphone in the club or at a rave. My kids schools don't allow screens and they go away for a couple weeks each summer to a camp that doesn't allow screens. They tell me that they really enjoy it after a couple of days, and I think it gives them a chance to feel the way we did as kids... back then there wasn't a movement of people trying to live more in the moment because everybody lived in the moment all the time.

[devrob]

The freedom and optimism is always rooted to the communal and ritual release in dance, the freedom to be as you are, or dance as you are. This gets harder and harder when there is fear of "documentation', if one can't "dance right" or "doesn't fit in".

Don't beat yourself up too hard though, you can always pickup a DJ controller and start again :)

And too: the scene has radically shifted, so being a promoter is a large part of the work. It's kind of like eSports in a way.