Paul Oakenfold, second left, at Shoom, 1988. In the summer of 1987, Paul Oakenfold, Johnny Walker, Danny Rampling and Nicky Holloway went to Ibiza to celebrate Oakenfold’s 25th birthday. While there they had a collective epiphany at Amnesia, hearing Balearic DJ legend Alfredo. They came back determined to recreate what they had experienced in their own vision. Oakenfold started playing house at his Project club, then Spectrum at Richard Branson’s club Heaven. Danny Rampling and his wife Jenni started Shoom, in the unlikely location of a fitness centre in Southwark. Shoom was the first club to adopt the smiley logo that would become synonymous with acid house. For many it was also the first club in London to present acid house as a full package. “I still remember vividly walking in to Shoom for the first time,” says regular Timna Rose. “I walked down the steps and the energy and buzz was overwhelming” Photograph: David Swindells/PYMCA
DJ Danny Rampling at Shoom, Southwark, July 1988. The dancer in the background is Anton Le Pirate, a regular on the acid house scene Photograph: David Swindells/PYMCA
In 1986, DJ Mike Pickering started playing Chicago house records at the Manchester Hacienda's Nude clubnights. Regulars included Shaun Ryder and Bez (pictured here with Deborah Faulkner in July 1986) from Happy Mondays, and promoter Eric Barker. Barker remembers the transformation in the club when ecstasy arrived: 'There must have been only about 15 of us at it at first, in our little corner. It was like a zoo and we were the exhibits. If you walked into the Haçienda, everyone else would look kind of normal, and then you’d look to the left and see about 15 of our lot going bananas and dancing very weirdly, completely differently to everyone else in the club. Obviously Bez had his own unique [dancing] style. I had always been a dancer anyway, but never with my hands in the air. I mean, who did dance with their arms in the air before ecstasy?' Photograph: Ian Tilton/Camera Press
Stalwarts of the Manchester acid house scene Gerald Simpson, aka A Guy Called Gerald, left, and Graham Massey from 808 State play live from Victoria Baths in Manchester during Tony Wilson’s Other Side of Midnight show, 1988 Photograph: Peter J Walsh/PYMCA
In May 1988 Nicky Holloway opened his first house night, The Trip at the Astoria on Tottenham Court Road. 'I wasn’t sure I could fill it at first,' remembers Holloway. 'I’d filled it for one-off Special Branch events [a rare groove and hip-hop night], but wasn’t sure I could fill it for house music. But by the time we opened we had 600 people queueing.' Noel and Maurice Watson had already tried to convert the Astoria to house music with their night Delirium, but had been too ahead of their time. The Haçienda’s Mike Pickering, booed off at the same venue six months earlier for playing acid house, couldn’t believe the transformation when he played The Trip’s opening night. 'This time the crowd were all in bandanas and smiley T-shirts, trance dancing. I probably played 70–80% of the same records I’d played six months previously but instead of booing me, they went mental. Bloody cockneys… always late to the party!' Photograph: David Swindells/PYMCA
Shoom was the first club to adapt the smiley face logo, which quickly became an emblem for the acid house scene. Here, a smiley T-shirt is worn by a dancer at the Trip house night in the now demolished Astoria, London, 1988 Photograph: David Swindells/PYMCA
The Blackburn raves – held in disused warehouses, and one occasion an old abattoir, between 1988 and 1990 – were started by a collective including Tony Creft and Tommy Smith and exploded in 1989. The first few were smaller events for friends, but as their reputation grew they began to attract people from Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and further afield. Cars of clubbers would descend on the Lancashire town. 'Blackburn just got bigger and bigger throughout 1989, traffic was converging from all over,' remembers Drew Hemment, who DJed at the later raves. 'It was beyond the rule of law, beyond anything.' The Blackburn raves attracted huge crowds – and eventually the attention of the police. Filmmaker Piers Sanderson has made a documentary (as yet unreleased) about these events, High on Hope, and is crowdfunding the money to pay for the music rights Photograph: http://www.highonhope.com
