Ive never been very good at keeping a diary. Ive always found it a false medium difficult for conveying true emotion. And, if nothing else, I wanted to get across the emotion of this event. So instead, here I am putting down these words, under cover of the London night that has witnessed my return to reality, in the dawning realisation that, for a brief time at the Boom festival, I had been part of another world.
The Boom festival in Portugal is dedicated to psychedelic trance music, or, in the words of the festival website, to creating a space in this time continuum where people from all over the world can live an alternative reality.
I can immediately see the eyes roll back into incredulous heads, and all those scoffing mouths: who needs this flimsy pseudo-philosophising bunch of work-shy, drugged up hippies?
Well I too would once have dismissed this event, and probably stopped reading this article. But now? Now that I have experienced just how beautiful a gathering of people can be, and what a blissful alternative reality can be created. It is something that I will never forget
The festival began in 1995, growing out of a music scene and culture born on the other side of the world in Goa, India. Since the 1960s, hippies or travellers have found their way to this part of southern India, to live out their dreams of escape from the greed, prejudice, class division and ethics of consumption and accumulation of Western society, into a life lived closer to nature and to each other as well as to smoke some good hashish.
The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Gong and Ozric Tentacles all provided a soundtrack to the expression of these new ideals across the decades. It was, however, in the late 1980s that music became the focus of this rejection of Western mores. Ecstasy joined LSD as the drug of choice and quickened the pace at which traditional musical arrangements were overtaken by new repetitive electronic music. This new music, with its fast and pounding beat, became the only style that could satisfy increasing numbers who used the new drug and suddenly seemed full of an indefatigable energy (it is estimated that 2 million such tablets are consumed each weekend in Britain alone).
This was a counter-culture that previous generations just couldnt understand. Ecstasy, with its euphoric loved-up effects, was a powerful drug and an equally powerful antidote to Western individualism. This dance culture, born in Chicago and Detroit, flowering in the summer of love in England, 198990, was now brought to Goa and other places on the hippy trail (such as the beaches of Thailand). Along the way, it would be melded and transformed into a new style of music ultimately bearing little relation to the souped-up disco of the American and British dance scenes.
Indeed, so little did the psy-trance that emerged from Goa resemble that Western dance style, that most Friday night revellers at the crop of superclubs which sprang up in the 1990s would still disassociate themselves from the music with as much gusto as would a purist fan of pop, or country.
Psychedelic Trance Music is tribal, feral, preternatural even utilizing high technology to tap into the rhythms already present in the body resonating with them and forcing the listener to move. A pulsating bass line marshals the song, alongside the pounding stomp of 130145 beats per minute. Over this are built ever more intricate layers of sound a fizzing, screeching and swirling sonic movement of blips, clicks and stabs the sound of cells dividing, of frogs singing, of thunder brewing as the low-end bubbles and the drums crack, taking the dancer into a crescendo a state of trance and then a drop back down to the bones of the song the tribal beat, and the dark ominous pulsating bass.
It was in pursuit of this powerful music that 12,000 (mostly but not entirely young) people set off for Portugal this summer. They came from Japan, Spain, Israel, Brazil, England, Zimbabwe, Argentina and countless other countries. They had found out the details for Boom through the internets global psychedelic community (see for example, Chaishop, Third-eye.org) or by word of mouth.
They had travelled, perhaps thousands of miles, to live their dream of total freedom of expression. And what a dream it is. To see this tattooed, pierced, and otherwise wildly adorned, rainbow nation united by sound and by dance was simply immense. To stand in the midst of thousands of people who, as the beat kicks in, move with such a ferocious, reckless abandon, is truly unforgettable 12,000 without ego, totally lost in the self-expression that the music is designed to inspire. The force of this group release of emotions is at times, truly overpowering. Indeed, such was its impact, such was the breaking down of barriers, that during the less intense moments of the music the dance floor became a sea of grinning people (everyone on the dance floor seemed to be hugging each other, whether they had been acquainted for years or had just met). We lost count of the amount of people we hugged men, women, old, young, from all over the planet. It didnt take words. We knew that we were part of something special. We wanted to show our appreciation of the moment and of the person in front of us, who was helping to create it.
The location helped a ravishing, immense landscape centred around a vast lake that by day soaked up the powerful sunshine for all to swim in, and by night formed a mirror to the stars and sky. The plains bordering the lake swept up into the forested foothills of mountains and hosted our temporary autonomous zone a place where, for a moment in time, the familiar ravages of the world could be rejected and we could glimpse the potential of people to act without prejudice toward a common goal, of self realisation (or hedonism if you would prefer).
For the duration, a whole city was constructed: tents, tepees, sound rigs, cushioned chill-out areas, eating places, art installations, meditation zones, decorations and beautiful lights of all shapes and sizes. All were designed to transform the area into a wonderland, and to synergise technology with the natural surroundings.
Ugly modernism was rejected; so that, even as the technology was pushed to its limits in the form of spectacular light shows and incredible sound, we were relocating ourselves cut into the natural sweeps of the land set in the shady woods of a jutting peninsular, or on a sweeping hillside that fell away into the crystal blue water.
The city that was created was complete with all of the amenities that one might expect, including access to the Internet. But what it lacked, or rather purposefully rejected, was all the familiar elements of intimidation that mar so many youth events. There were no confrontations, no drunken brawls, no noticeable racism, sexism or homophobia, and no leering adolescents whose confidence lasts until their hangovers kick in. The people here were on a different, far more gentle, trip.
Our temporary city also rejected law. There was scant security, and the couple of smiling policemen that were there never seemed to venture beyond the ticket checkpoint, a good two kilometres from the hub of the festival. This was an anarchy policed merely by the goodwill of fellow travellers. Similar anarchy in Englands Glastonbury festival has always had undercurrents of violence and drug abuse. These were noticeably absent.
Its not that there were no drugs far from it. Drugs are part of the fabric of the event. Cannabis resin, marijuana, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, LSD, amphetamines, nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and the horse-tranquilliser Ketamin were all readily available (those who had taken the latter substance were usually to be found lying in the shade, unable to speak). However, other more addictive drugs, such as heroin, crack and a handful of others, were generally agreed to be socially unacceptable. They were seen as contrary to the aims of the festival and frowned upon by the community. In the early days of Goa trance, alcohol was also often banned from events. Use but dont abuse was the advice given by one beaming Portuguese man, who had become an instant friend. And this advice was generally heeded.
In a way we were all ready to leave. We must have walked an average of at least six kilometres a day, dancing for several hours, expending masses of emotional as well as physical energy and the toll on the body, and the mind, was beginning to show. But I like to think I can speak for nearly 100% of the festival-goers. We are already looking forward to the next Boom event, in two years time, when once again for a brief idyll, we will recreate this imaginary world of ours where we are all truly free.
You may deny our experience any value whatsoever. Maybe all that we achieved was to meet in a field, dance around and listen to some music. But, maybe, at Boom, we did touch on something important, glimpse a freedom that so many others are denied and that many more deny themselves, through fear of the unknown. Maybe you have never known what its like. Maybe you dont think it possible. I guess the only way to find out is to join me in 2004.
There are probably a couple of casualties still sitting in that Portuguese forest unaware that the party is over. But, for the rest of us, it was back to civilisation after six days of what some would call madness but we called beauty.
