Norwegian Playing Fields, Jenkins Ln, London IG11 0AD
Britain’s First Legal All-Night Rave
Raindance launched on 16 September 1989 at Jenkins Lane, Beckton, on land formerly leased to the Norwegian Seamen’s Union and later used as football pitches with a small clubhouse. The site was surrounded by industrial land – a refuse tip on one side, sewage works on the other – and crucially had no nearby houses, making it ideal for large-scale music events.
The promoters were Paul Nelson, Lou Lewis (caretaker of the site), and Ray Spence, a rare groove promoter. Their aim was to run a licensed, all-night event at a time when most raves were illegal. Newham Council confirmed that the clubhouse carried a drinks licence, which the organisers took as authority to stage the party. Flyers promised “10,000 strong – dance ’til dawn” under a circus tent. Around 500 people attended the first event, with DJs including Fabio, Grooverider, Linden C, Cleveland Anderson, Colin Dale and Slipmatt. Police visited but allowed it to continue, making it Britain’s first licensed all-night rave.
“Oh, Raindance at Jenkins Lane – that was a big one in Newham. It was amazing, like funfairs and everything down there. You’d come off the A13 and it looked like nothing, then inside it was huge warehouses, funfairs, lights and energy.”
Laura Wicks, co-founder Deja Vu FM
Over the next three years Raindance staged around 20 events at Jenkins Lane, drawing audiences of up to 7,500. Marquees gave way to big tops, fairground rides were installed, and the line-ups grew to include Carl Cox, Trevor Fung, Top Buzz, LTJ Bukem, SL2, Shades of Rhythm, N-Joi and The Prodigy, who all played early sets there.
The last Jenkins Lane Raindance was held on 18 April 1992. The site later became a Powerleague five-a-side football centre, but its role in rave history remains central as the location of Britain’s first legal all-night rave.
Oral histories
Paul Nelson
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Background
Paul Nelson, born 1963 in Hackney, founded Raindance in 1989 at Jenkins Lane, Newham, securing the UK’s first licensed all-night rave.
Transcript
It had no houses around. It had a rubbish dump one side, the sewage works, the other end, so it was a real sort of out the way place.
For the very first Raindance, we had marquees by the second or third one, we had big tops, like big circus big tops. Because they was sort of legal we could have put the address on and that, but we thought that wouldn’t be cool enough. So we still wanted to to do the meeting points, like, like all the illegal ways would then. So yeah, we had a petrol garage in Camden as a meeting point and a place out in Essex, various meeting points. And it was very early days of mobile phones, and the batteries weren’t very good them days. So I had my mobile phone as the as the information point, and I was trying to man this phone, I think I had six batteries and that I just couldn’t, couldn’t keep up with it for the amount of calls that were coming in, and you know, how long the batteries would last. And we went on all through Sunday daytime and all through Sunday night, and sometime about six o’clock Monday morning, we turned the music off, and that was it.
DJ wise on it. I made sure that I got Linden C because he had been my inspiration. We had a guy called Cleveland Anderson that helped us put the line up together. Probably our, what we thought was our biggest DJs at the time were Fabio and Grooverider. So they were very good, but all very early days for them. There’s this little band called The Prodigy that were playing. I thought they were great. And my brother got to know them as well, and they said, ‘Yeah, we’d really love to come and play at Raindance. Can we do it?’ And and we got them on. And, you know, they were pretty much unknown, an unknown band then, and obviously, we’ll, we’ll know what happened there.
