| Amnesia House are one
of the original promoters of the 'Rave / Acid House Scene',
organising illegal warehouse parties as far back as 1988,
and are the unsung heroes of the industry. They have never
cashed in on the scene and have always put on parties for
the people, not for their bank balance. Neville and Bambam
(Mickey Lynas's brother) of Amnesia House took us through
"Rave History".
The name Amnesia House has been familiarised with the Balearic
Rave scene for many years. In fact the name was brought back
from Ibiza, and used in the UK for their rave at Canal Road.
Their first party was for 200 people in Canal Road, Coventry.
They were really quite naive those days. They were just ravers
who decided to put on their own events. They began as doormen
in clubs, and progressed in to the House scene as organisers.
The two people that started Amnesia House were Bambam and
Neville's brother Kieran. With their second party the police
took interest into what they were doing due to other things
happening in Coventry. The police came down heavily on them.
So after the second party they let things cool down a little.
It was when they started up again and began to organise another
party, Neville joined Amnesia House. Kieran had gone abroad
and just left Neville and Bambam running things. Their third
party could really be described as their first legal party.
They were offered a venue by Stuart, a friend of theirs, who
had a friend who lived out in the countryside and the venue
was actually to be in the grounds at his estate. As this was
to be an all ticket event and they had permission from the
landowner, the event was 'legal'. Also back then and Entertainment
Licence was not required as it is now (amongst much more red
tape). This party was called 'House 1', they had a kicking
sound system, scaffolding with sheeting on, and a few flashing
lights. About 250 people turned up. The second event, 'House
2', was held in a warehouse offered to them by a friend. The
police actually helped this event go ahead for the police
helicopter lit up the road enabling the convoy of ravers to
find their way to the venue. It went on from there really,
they started to attract people from all over, but initially
Birmingham. At 'House 3' a lot of Birmingham people attended
the vent.
Amnesia House at this time was big enough for the police
to take an interest in their parties, they were approached
by the police and asked to consider going legal, they didn't
want dodgy warehouse events taking place, they preferred everything
above board.
It was at this time that Mickey Lynas joined Amnesia House,
Mickey started up a mailing list, where people became members
under the Amnesia House name. They then found a venue called
'Sky Blue Connection' and the police said that they could
hold the events there. This was probably the very first legal
club rave in the UK. The police were very co-operative, they
agreed that a Public Entertainments Licence was not needed,
but a condition was that everyone had to be a member of the
club, so it could be classed as a private party. The only
problem for them was that the ticket office was situated three
miles away from the club and people could not pay on the door,
they had to buy a ticket and they were automatically a member
on buying a ticket. The events at the 'Sky Blue Connection'
were probably some of the best in the Midlands rave scene.
The events were taking place once a month and they always
had top DJ's playing on the nights, DJs including Doc Scott
(who had been with them since 1988), Man Parris (who was also
one of the big DJ's back then before he became and MC). After
six top class events at this venue, the 'Sky Blue Connection'
was closed down with deepest regret, due to the police clamping
down on events, so they then moved to 'The Eclipse' in Coventry.
The Eclipse was the first all-night rave club back in 1991,
it opened as the first all-night club in the UK with an Entertainments
Licence. Amnesia House were not doing anything at first, but
when went and held six top-class events that were rammed to
capacity. It was probably some of the best events held in
the history of the rave scene. At the same time that they
were in the Eclipse, Amnesia House were running the most renowned
club for Rave Events in Shelly's Lazerdrome at Stoke-On-Trent.
Shelly's was a pure Happy House club that had an atmosphere
that was unbeatable, booking top PAs such as N-Joi and Altern8
and it also had all the top DJs playing there.
Shelly's was a mecca for rave. Things went on at Shelly's
which no other club experienced. For example, Altern8 performing
a live PA in the car park for the ravers at 3am after the
club was close! Neville was not only a promoter, but also
appeared as security at their events, then he began to go
on the mic at Shelly's. He wasn't really an MC, he was just
giving a shout out to the crowd - he never MCd for any other
organisations. However, his friends said he should be called
Loud N Nasty. Shelly's was sadly closed down, the police stopped
them from getting their Entertainment's Licence. Amnesia House
found this to be a great loss for they had had 18 months in
there and found it to be some of the best times. The Eclipse
was still being used by Amnesia House, and was becoming more
and more popular at their parties on Fridays.
Donnington Park was the next big step. The first Donnington
Park event was July 9, yet again standards not dropping, and
on the best DJ and MC line up, and the first event pulled
in 7500 people, showing they had a mass following. The only
thing letting them down was the sound system, and after four
events there, with the sound system getting letting them own
each time, they thought it was best to move on for they felt
that they were letting down the ravers. If Amnesia House would
have stayed at Donnington Park, they would have been offered
the event that Fantazia did in the open air for 25000 people.
1992 saw Amnesia House start preparing for the 'Book of Love'
event, featuring the wedding of their then partner, Mickey
Lynas. Amnesia House could still have done the event without
the marriage of Mickey, but although it was to the disagreement
of Bambam and Neville they decided to let it go ahead as it
was just an extra attraction on stage, and in fairness it
did go down well.
Two years previously, Mickey Lynas had a dream. He wanted
to get married on stage in front of 15000 people. On that
day his dream came true. Other members of Amnesia House did
not want him to do the wedding for they knew that they could
pull the numbers in anyway, but Mickey and Nemesis thought
that they could get all the DJs and PAs to play for free...
but they all got paid in the end. The event was an unbelievable
success, all the DJs played very well, the weather stayed
dry and fine and there was an excellent atmosphere in the
crowd all night. The sound system and lighting was to Amnesia
House's usual high standards.
It was after the wedding that Amnesia House and Mickey fell
out over money. Mickey decided to go his separate way and
leave Amnesia House and started up a company called Dance
Trance. This proved a very emotional time for Neville and
Bambam because of all the hard work they had put into the
'Book of Love'. They could not believe there was no money
left to put on their next event, they felt they had been connect,
they did not make a penny, in fact a loss, so they were back
to square one. Amnesia went back to their roots and started
all over again back at The Eclipse, still pulling in the crowds
of 2000 and more and holding their heads up high, they hadn't
lost peoples faith. Neville and Bambam believe in a different
style of event keeping it unique to Amnesia, always booking
the country's top DJs. Everyone that goes knows what to expect.
Leading up to Xmas they had some really busy nights, on Boxing
Day it was packed, but their real biggy was New Years Eve.
Neville and Bambam found things to be ticking over just fine.
Amnesia House was left alone for a while when a big shock
came for everyone - "The Wedding Anniversary", although
they didn't call it Amnesia House Mickey used all the original
pictures from the first even and gave out free videos leading
people to believe that it was an Amnesia House event. The
original Amnesia House came back with a vengeance. They did
an event at 'The Sanctuary', even though it was bad timing
as there were a lot of other big events going off at the same
time, the production was still spot on and it was still a
huge success, Amnesia House still pulled a large crowd proving
they are still a leading promoter in the UK. Amnesia's next
big event was at 'The Institute' in Birmingham and it was
crammed in.
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