Alex was a guy I met in Glasgow who walked with a limp, which he explained was the result of his involvement with a gang of punks and their involvement in a notable riot during his misspent youth, when his family lived in Manchester.
He also talked like he was gargling marbles, but that was common enough in Glasgow that a few months in I barely noticed.
We had become fast friends after meeting at the Burrell museum one afternoon, both of us having been overwhelmed by the collection, especially the wide variety of stained glass panels from medieval Europe.
On a Wednesday evening that happened to also be Christmas eve, Alex came by my room with a flyer advertising a Rave, and after he shoved the flyer in my hand he exclaimed that this was something we must, absolutely must, attend.
Primarily, he said, because I had never attended a "real" Rave before, something I made the mistake of admitting one night when we were at a dance at the GSA, standing around talking about the differences between the club and bar scene in the US & Scotland.
Plus, he was quick to add, it was better than sitting around doing nothing on Christmas eve.
This Rave was going to be held at a venue known as The Arches, a name derived from the fact it was built in the arches of a railroad viaduct a few miles from where I lived off the Great Western Road & Belmont Street in the West End of Glasgow.
Now, my idea of what a Rave was at that time (late 1990's) was based entirely on what I had read in various magazines, and what I had been told by a few people I knew who bragged endlessly that Raves in Scotland were the best and that I would be lucky to be able to experience one.
So it was with a bit of expectation that I dressed up for this (as Alex explained I usually would be able to dress like an American, as Raves were not like the clubs - no dress codes to speak of - and I was probably going to want to wear trainers (aka tennis shoes) as we were going to be on our feet for a long time, but it being Christmas Eve and all, I probably should dress up a little).
We got a cab down to the City Centre and I was surprised by how many people were already there - Alex said we should be getting there early enough to beat the crowd, but the crowd had apparently had the same idea.
It was December, and it was cold. There was a light drizzle falling and we had to stand in one of two lines to get in. I remember quickly checking out what everyone was wearing as I stood in line, reassuring myself that the doorman wasn't going to turn me away because I wasn't wearing the right shoes (up to then, every club I had gone to in Glasgow had had a strict dress code which stipulated "no trainers", even the somewhat dodgy Cleopatra's).
The line (or, to use the vernacular, the queue) moved quickly, and after we paid the 12 pounds each to get in, we were able to move about the large crowd rather easily as the place was surprisingly huge - my initial impression was that it was the largest cellar I had ever been in, as it was literally just the large open space below the huge brick arches that supported the spans of a railway. It also felt slightly damp and musty, though that may have been the large crowd that was already dancing to the music being played by two DJ's who stood in front of a long table at the far end of the large arch we were under, which kinda felt like being in a very wide tunnel.
I remember thinking at the time about a film that centered around French resistance fighters in WWII - the venue looked strikingly similar to where the fighters were hiding from the NAZI's.
The music being played was Techno, and it was non-stop. The two DJ's were damn good at what they did, which was play high-energy music that keep everybody moving as if they were all those tiny football players on the vibrating metal football field my friend DV had gotten for Christmas once twenty years before.
Being as this was during my sober years, I did not indulge in the free drink that came with admission, nor did I indulge in any of the various drugs on offer. I just danced, with a lot of women and for a very, very long time.
'course, this was back when I could dance for a very, very long time, before my knees starting rebelling.
I danced to music I did not recognize, and I danced without a care in the world. It was quite refreshing to just get out in the middle of a crowd and dance without having to bother to ask a girl if she wanted to dance. Everybody just danced, and everybody just had a great time.
Every so often I would make my way out of the crowd to get some water and cool down a bit, my body (and clothes) soaked with sweat, my thin blonde hair matted down as if I had just pulled myself out of the ocean.
I lost track of time, and I lost track of Alex (he had left, I learned later, with a girl he had been hoping to run into), but man, I don't think I had ever enjoyed a Christmas Eve more.
It escapes my memory what time I finally left, but I do recall clearly not being able to hail a cab and having to walk back to my room, and that I was freezing the whole time, what with the sweat and the cold damp coming up off the river.
When I got up the next morning my legs ached like I had just clambered up 10,000 stairs, but despite that I was happy as a clam. All those people were right - Rave's in Glasgow were fantastic.
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