There's a difference between a standard bank holiday rave - and this years midweek rememberance of the battle of the beanfield when let's face it THE COPS WENT MAD AND ATTACKED PEOPLE LIKE ANIMALS.

Thats some people post the truck flyer to indymedia calling it a beanfield party doesn't really help though.

I thought the vintage bus advert was hilarious! the po-faced way they explain that sharp eyed intelligence officers rumbled a euphemism is fantastic...

Pete.

There are plenty of us who were at Beanfield who will be in the area over this weekend....

A big thank you to everyone from your friends at Wiltshire Police Service. There was a rumour this wasn't going to happen but know the overtme has been authorised they are all delighted.

The weekend thing has been definatly cancelled. An event will take place in london instead.

"definatly"

Great - a new word

I can't really see what yer on about with all this. the so called "battle of the beanfield" was a very one sided massacre
in which people and their property were trashed by the cops any one who dared to fight back got a severe kicking.

I went went to most of the Stonehenge festivals and i can remember the darkest days of thatcherism very well.
I used to go to East bergholt , Diss and other festivals organised by the east anglian arts council where the organisers would warn smokers with printed notes about the DS being on site and what ever .
that was before capitalist hippie types started turned all festivals into money spinners by turning up with van loads of beer and other shit.
Stonehenge was great bands playing onthe backs of lorries and everyone out of it on acid, but other types were busy
nicking brand new cars cars in Salisbury and bringing them back on site stripping them down using the five or six thousand people who were on site as a shield against the old bill in uniform , for sure the plain clothes guys knew who the criminals were but there was no way they could come on site, at the last oor perhaps the one before I was down by the gate when a J type Bedford crashed through the two cop cars that were blocking the gate at the time
i thought the guy driving was a fucking hero, exactly what state i was in at the time i don't recall either going up or coming down and having tried all the acid on site i seem to remember that the truck was yellow and the two cop cars were rover 3500's . Anyway the people who were involved in the criminal activites were a minority and most of the
"revellers" too out of it to even think about going into town let alone to nick cars.
I hear a lot about the demise of the stonehenge festival and most of it is crap because no one seems, not even the cops, seem to mention the fact that certain people used it as a cover to carry out anti social criminal activities which were not directed against the state or banks or corporates or other scum bags no they just nick or destroy ordinary peoples property. The beanfield was like pay back time and mist of the folks who got beat up probably never did anything wrong but by that time "the convoy" was a name used to describe any group of travellers in buses and vans.
I have seen the same thing repeated in later years , the Bus shelter in Amsterdam, and later in Diemon (spelling)
(Amsterdam now a dormitory and even Robo Dock is sponsored by the Polite.)
a small minority of people fuck it up for the rest. Don't get me wrong i am certainly not a law abiding citizen, I used to bunk of school to follow Chelsea and the most cherished memories are of the cops running for it and us lot legging it after them , two or three occasions but that was at a foootball match I used to go to festivals on a completely different vibe, but if the cops had come on site I would have had a go, but
i do respect others peopls shit, I would steal from a super market but not from a small corner shop and so on.
Before thatcher a lot of the small anarcho type theatre groups were able to claim sponsorship form various arts councils, Footsbahn for example moved to France but there were others that i can't remember who were brilliant
Rougham Tree fair was a great festival and there was rarely any trouble, the festival of fools down in cornwall
the magic mushroom festival, devils bridge was a little bit more risky and you were sure to get stopped and searched on the way in and out.
Most of the festivals in the 70's and eighties were good natured and people went there to enjoy themselves
if the cops got heavy we fought back but fighting or being violent was not the reason to go there.
I can't exactly see where your going now and i reckon that most of these raves are organized by people who are
more intersted in making money than having a good time the music is crap the drugs are not up too much and
people who go there don't seem to know what the fuck they are doing there. The people so called organizers couldn't organise a wank in a brothel and leave a mountain of plastic and beer cans behind them.
So where exactly are y'all going ? wid yer battle of the beanfield celebrations ?

Hi Festa,

most of the talk re beanfield _is_ about a commemoration, not a 'celebration'. i know several people who want to remember what happened because it was an important event, but they wouldn't want to hang around the area and get blasted and have some party. it's about remembering, which is damn important.

re raves - well there's dozens of parties every weekend. many during the summer months are small outside fun in the sun affairs of a couple of hundred people. well organised, sites cleared of rubbish, great examples of DIY fun and celebration - but you don't hear about those do you? mostly the only thing people hear about are the larger ones that are bound to be significantly different. there's many realities right?

Nice to see you got through your mid-life crisis alright!-) Believe it or not, the 'rave' scene (that's a bit of an anachronism for a start) is also full of nice people completely disinterested in making money, who put a lot of energy into organising free parties and make sure that all rubbish is bagged and shifted after. Round my way there's even been 'wombles picnics' where people have a chilled daytime kid-friendly party in a green space and clear it of all litter whilst they're 'raving'. Let's ace it, in order to survive with mental health in this grey sky country, rather than taking the easy option and running off to Spain like so many people do, then come May you want to be out in a field, a wood, or on a mountain, sitting round a fie with real live human beings, having a can of whatever and a spliff. The music (when did you become the authority on 'crap music' by the way? lol) is an excuse for that as far as I'm concerned, although it sounds pretty good on one of those new fangled 'disco biscuits' (I suppose your acid was the 'real shit' too?

Chill out and try a party this weekend.