New Generation

The promoter behind this event (Neville Fivey) started off promoting events around 1988. He was first involved in Amnesia House- a promotion which ended up to become one of the most well established & respected rave organisations in the country.

Amnesia House first started in 1988 by Bambam (Mickey Lynas’ brother) and Neville’s brother Kieran. Their first party was held at Canal Road in Foleshill, Coventry – on their second event the police started to take some notice into their event and went down rather hard on them, so they went quiet on the illegal warehouse parties, and managed to hold events at a club called Reflections on Burges Lane in the Coventry City Centre, just over the road from where the guys were working as doormen at The Tally Ho pub (now ‘The Tudor Rose’).

When they started running more of the ‘illegal’ parties again, Kieran had left to go abroad and had Neville & Bambam to carry on. A friend of there’s; Stuart, lived in a Countryside mansion, which had a very well spaced garden, and Stuart offered the guys to do an event in the grounds of his estate. As this was to be a ticket only event with permission of the landowner, an entertainment licence as such was not really needed and the event was in so many ways legal. They called this ‘House 1’ and had around 250 people show up which was a success. Neville & Bambam then went on to promote ‘House 2’ – again a venue being offered to them by another friend who had a warehouse. The police helped this event go ahead helping the convoy of ravers find their way to the venue and people were starting to travel to their events- especially Birmingham. When they held ‘House 3’ many people from Birmingham attended that event, and at this point the police considered Amnesia House to become legal.

It was after these events that Mickey Lynas then joined Amnesia House. Mick’s input really did help boost Amnesia even more as he started a mailing list where people could become members for the organisation. This was around 1989 and by now they’d found a new venue- ‘The Sports Connection’. From here they went onto promoting some of the best events in the Midlands rave scene. The legendary act Top Buzz received their first Midlands booking here; and also helped push their resident artists more such as Doc Scott & Man Parris. Other DJ’s such as Eric Nipper (Manchester), Grooverider (London, then to become the Amnesia resident), Dobbo (Coventry), Keith Suckling (Birmingham?), Jam MC’s (?), and also other International DJ’s such as Derrick May (Detroit, USA) & Frankie Bones (Brooklyn). People travelled all over for the events at The Sports Connection (also known as ‘The Sky Blue Connexion’) from Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, London and many other places within the country.

This was probably the very first legal rave organisation within the UK as the police were extremely helpful and stated that a Public Entertainment Licence would not be needed, but a condition on that it was a member’s party- so it could be classed as a private party. This caused some problems because the ticket office was situated a few miles away from the venue and people could not pay on the door, people had to buy tickets and then become members once the tickets had been purchased. The events as said at The Sky Blue Connexion put a standard setting within the rave scene and the events ran on a monthly basis until unfortunately after their “One step beyond” event in July 1990, a fellow raver Matthew from Leicester was found dead not far away from the venue.

The police then clamped down and did not want Amnesia House to lead on doing events at The Connexion anymore after the recent death. An agreement was made that they could hold a final party- which was to go down in rave history – “Sky blue” on 25th August 1990. The dj line up contained Frankie Bones (who flew in from Brooklyn), Grooverider, Keith Suckling, Doc Scott, Andy Carroll, Dobbo and a host more. The promoters also hired a filming crew to capture the event which was then to later be released as the first Amnesia House video.

Not long after the Sky blue event, the legendary Eclipse nightclub opened its doors on 13th October 1990 on Lower Ford Street, on the outskirts of Coventry City Centre. What was a Gala bingo hall now became a 4 floored nightclub, and was also voted the best nightclub in the country in 1991 by fellow ravers through DJ Magazine. With a chill out space including a cinema on the ground floor, a second floor room enough to hold 500 people, and the main room on the top floor holding over a 1000 people including the balcony – people travelled from all over the country to come to this club. After Baz Edwards & Stuart Reid starting off with the club was rammed every Friday & Saturday night, it wasn’t long until rave organisations then started to hold events at the club.

Amnesia House were the first organisation to step foot in The Eclipse with it being in their home city of Coventry. Their first event was in December 1990 and was called ‘The Christmas Cracker’. Another successful night yet again as people from Birmingham, Nottingham and London all travelled to the event to hear DJ’s Grooverider, Keith Suckling, Doc Scott, Top Buzz and more. These became a permanent home for Amnesia House and held some amazing events over the years. By February 1991 Amnesia House also ended up holding event’s every Saturday at Shelley’s in Stoke on Trent. Their events at Shelleys didn’t even have any flyers printed, people just came by word of mouth and it was always a good night to be had. Many memories include DJ’s Sasha, Daz Willot, Ellis Dee, Grooverider, Fabio, Luke, Neil Trix to grace the decks, and who can forget when Altern 8 showed up on a lorry outside to do a live pa and help film for their new music video once the punters steamed out of the club. This lasted for about half an hour until the police managed to unfortunately put things to a stop (again!)

1991 was an amazing year for Amnesia House as Neville; Mickey & Bambam really did put so much hard work into their events. They were now releasing recordings from the parties on a regular basis, releasing videos from their bigger events and were holding weekly events at The Eclipse on Fridays and at Shelleys on Saturdays. It was at this point around early 1991 that Neville also helped Luke & Neil Trix- two well known DJ’s from Coventry to open up the Bang-in Tunes record shop on Hales Street in Coventry. The shop was to sell not only records, but tickets for the next big raves, tapes from the latest events happening, and also a large range of Amnesia House & Bangin Tunes merchandise such as T-Shirts, Coats, Record bags, Slip mats and much more. They even produced a catalogue to show the latest range of merchandise & stock. It was a huge success and became one of the most well known record shops in the country.

In the summer of 1991, Neville now helped get the Bangin Tunes events up and running, which were first held at The West Indian Club and The Tic Toc Nightclub (later to become The Collosseum, and now The Kasbah) in Coventry. DJ’s included the residents themselves Neil Trix, Luke & Doc Scott, and a host of others including Carl Cox and more. In November 1991 they held the first Bang-in tunes event at The Eclipse and did a string of other events there with DJ’s Jumping Jack Frost, Swan-E, Slipmatt and Mickey Finn at the least. MC’s such as Man Parris, Shock C and Loud & Nasty (Neville) were adding as hosts for the night.

As well as all that going on, Amnesia House now also got involved with Nemesis, a well known organisation from Leicester who really helped Amnesia get involved into bigger events. They did their first joint event at Donnington Park where 5000 people gathered in July 1991, and also held another two events in ’91 there including Amnesia’s birthday bash in October, and the Christmas party in December. It was after the event of March 1992 even though they were reaching up to crowds of almost 10,000 - they decided to stop doing events at Donnington as they had major issues regarding sound. The two organisations also held a successful event at (Quarry) in August ’91. If they had carried on with their events at Donnington they would have been offered the event that Fantazia then held at Castle Donnington in July 1992, which catered for 25,000 and was a major success.

With now having two weekly events at some of the best clubs in the country, their bigger parties at Donnington Park, also running the Bangin tunes record shop & parties, and helping other promotions such as ‘New Age’ at The Eclipse, the boys were writing history. The clubs they were using set some firm marks in the scene, such as The Prodigy doing some of their first live performances (and playing for as low as £60 back then!), and also had some of the best resident DJ’s in the country from Fabio & Grooverider to Daz Willot. Now with all of that and even some other small string of events to follow including Scotland, Manchester, Hinckley and Leicester- could they provide anything any bigger? Oh yes! The boys had something lined up their sleeves for quite some time…

Amnesia House joined forces with Nemesis to provide probably the biggest fully legal rave seen at the time; “The book of love”. It happened on Saturday 27th June 1992 at Bray field Stadium in Northamptonshire and catered for 15,000 people as an outdoor event. It provided a massive stage for the performers, huge projection screens, massive lighting rigs, dance podiums and so much more. DJ’s on the night were Fabio, Grooverider, Top Buzz, Carl Cox, Stu Allan, Mickey Finn and Jumping Jack Frost. MC’s Man Parris & Loud and Nasty were on the bill but a whole heap of top mc’s performed such as Five-0, Lenni, Bassman, and even Mad P from Top Buzz emceed for Grooverider. The ravers were also treated to two live pa’s by Dream Frequency and The Prodigy (who were also filming a music video there for their single ‘something’), and even a wedding ceremony! Mickey Lynas announced on BBC’s ‘The time the place’ back in 1989 on the episode ‘Unusual weddings’ and mentioned that he wanted to get married on stage at a rave in front of 1000s of people, so on the night the main attraction was also that he married his partner Tereen, with DJ Grooverider as the best man!

After an amazing event to go down in history the promoters unfortunately had a fall out over money. Mickey Lynas decided to go his separate way and set up his own company called ‘Dance Trance’ whilst Bambam and Neville carried on with Amnesia House and Bangin Tunes. Even though the financial side of things hadn’t expected to what Neville and Bambam were hoping for, they still hadn’t lost people’s faith.

It was around July 1992 that The Eclipse closed and rumours were flying around that the Coventry City Council had got what they wanted by having the club shut down. But then all was ok, it turned out to be that a lot of money was then being spent on the place to have the club refurbished. It was called ‘The Edge’ and opened on Friday 18th September 1992. It wasn’t long before Amnesia & Bangin Tunes were tied in helping this still showing why this was one of the best clubs in the country, with a kicking 20k Martin F1 Sound system, lasers, top lighting and so much more. The Amnesia events in Shelleys unfortunately stopped as the club was forced to close in October 1992.

At this point in late ’92 the music (Hardcore) was quite rapidly well known for either providing either a darker or happier sound, this later on leading into ‘Hardcore’ and ‘Jungle’. The Edge promotions team and Amnesia went on throughout 1993 booking a nice wide diversity of British DJ’s to champion the Hardcore & Jungle sound, and the club did mainly take more of a focus to Jungle. With top DJ’s such as Seduction, Randall, Ellis Dee, Slipmatt, Grooverider, LTJ Bukem, Carl Cox to name a few, big DJ’s were playing in that club every Saturday night. With residents Luke, Neil Trix, Shock C, Man Parris, MC Hi-fi, Distortion Crew & more. Neville also helped get other promoters to hold events at The Edge including Dreamscape, Jungle Fever, Fibreoptic and Starlight. Mickey Lynas also held one of his ‘Dance Trance’ parties there in April 1993, and Neville also co-ran the Bangin Tunes events too with Neil Trix & Luke. This also proved a much more successful status for the Bangin Tunes crew as at this point they had launched a record label, and the 2nd release by FBD Project (a/k/a Neil Trix & Danny) ‘Terminate’ went onto becoming a classic within the Jungle scene. The 3rd release on the label by FBD Project ‘She’s breaking up/ the core’ also again became a classic release within the Jungle scene yet again with every big dj playing the record in their sets.

1993 proved a rather difficult but still a rather successful year for Neville and the boys. They still did have Coventry on the map and also held a successful event titled ‘Back with a vengeance’ at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes, but with The Edge also running on a weekly basis the numbers started decreasing towards late ’93. If bigger promotion nights such as Amnesia, Fibreoptic etc the club would be busy, but the weekly nights Neville was helping with at The Edge were becoming less busy. It was a point in time where the Jungle music was really making its impact and was sometimes known for a ‘moody’ atmosphere and therefore leading to some trouble. With some successful events near the closing time they chose such as Amnesia’s birthday celebration in November ’93, the sell-out New Year’s Eve event (which ended up turning people away, and is still another classic event spoken of still to this day) they decided enough was enough and held a final closing party in February 1994.

1994 again saw the promoters from Coventry now becoming regulars in Birmingham & Sheffield. Amnesia House went onto holding a fantastic event at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre, and also holding two massive Bank holiday bash specials at The Institute in Digbeth. All the top DJ’s such as Fabio, Grooverider, Mickey Finn, Ron, L Double, Hype, Swan-e and many more were all still making regular appearances for Amnesia, and the same was also happening for Mickey Lynas with his Dance Trance parties at The Que Club, and the Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. The Edge promotions team themselves also went onto promoting events at a club called Angels in Burnley, and then coming back home to Coventry with some events at the Mercia Sports Centre in Coventry- where they’d previously held a series of weekly events under the Amnesia House name in 1991. Another successful event was Amnesia’s “Shelleys reunion party” at Venue 44 in Mansfield (another historic rave venue) which had a diverse range of DJ’s such as Swan-e, Fallout, Seduction, Dougal, Luke, Neil Trix & more. [MORE TO BE FINISHED]