January 17, 2007
The Daily Photoist: IMG_4343_filtered
Each weekday morning, we pick a recent image from the Torontoist Flickr Pool and feature it here on the site. It's our way to give the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention they deserve!
Newsflash: Rave culture is still alive and well in 2007. This always comes as a surprise to some of us at Torontoist. Wasn't raving like soooo 1992..? Perhaps we shouldn't have been so hasty selling off those old Underworld and Orbital CDs at Sonic Boom. Maybe we could've been rave retro. (There was that one time we sold off a lot of early '90's stuff, including that Speed 2 soundtrack we were never proud to own. They do take everything after all.) Seriously though, is this an aging scene who's been raving since '92 or is this a whole new generation of rave culture? (Imagine the promotional tagline: "This ain't your parents' rave scene.")
All that aside, Torontoist Flickr photographer JaMmCat (Air`leth Aodhfin) has used nouveau rave culture as the inspiration for a lot of his shots including the very cool one above. After all, it's a great scene to photograph -- there's lots of costumes, movement, lights, colours -- and plenty of smiling subjects. The selected image we especially like because of how it appears to be illustrated with blobs of light. Great colours against that stark black background.
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And that's Lori Kufner, too, isn't it?
Sonic Boom takes anything -- and gives you 25 cents for it.
Oh man, I miss raves. 94-97 baby! And a few more in 98-99. Good times, good times. I felt old at my first party when I was 22 and the average age seemed to be about 15. I'd feel like a sex offender now at 34, and I dunno if I could dance till 9 or 10am any more! But still, more fun than any other nightlife experience I can recall.
The scene is mostly new blood, but there are still some that have been raving since early days, and lots that have been around since the late 90s. A lot of them like Orbital too. :P
I remember that old telnet-based VRAVE chat server, circa 1993. I attended many a virtual rave through its pre-web command-line interface! Those were the days...
Lori is actually made of blobs of light.
Hey, I know that girl ;)
Yes, rave culture is definitely still alive in Toronto. There are many, many new ravers at every single party, and some of the larger events of the year (like Together as One at the Docks) continue to draw 4,000+ people.
If you ever want to hear the story of how I came to live in Toronto, I would be happy to tell you the story of Hullabaloo!
Best purple/blue/pink photo of half of newmindspace ever.
Its nice to hear someone say that rave scene isnt "dead", because it really isnt. I've been raving for just over a year and the parties that I have been to have been filled with lively and enthousiastic individuals such as the girl in this picture. There's no doubt that in 10 years from now, like in any other scence, people will be saying how great the parties were back in 07. I say we live in the moment and make it the best we can.
eep! i'm so much the glowing!
(and look like such a raver :P)
it was definitely a good party, and had a great time
(except for when my purse got stolen from the table i was working at?)
How could it possibly the same scene it was before, 15 years have passed since 1992. So many of us were still watching saturday morning cartoons at that time, learning multiplication tables and how write in cursive.
No, times I'm sure have changed. I couldn't possibly judge one against the other, but I know I like the present and look forward to what the future has in store.
You know what though? I'm not in it for a counter/sub-culture, I'm in it to dance.
*insert jaded comment about how the good old days were better* ;)
oh wow! such an awesome picture!!! ..of such an awesome persone! lori is one of my favourtie ravers ever!!!!!