RAVING, WE WERE RAVING! #localandproud
Shelleys’ key role in the years when Britain embraced a new club culture
PLACES like London and Manchester typically get the most credit for popularising the rave scene which left a lasting influence on the nightclubs and music charts of today.
But a club in Longton would be a key part of it - and it would shine brightly, but not for long.
Shelleys Laserdome first opened its doors in 1989, after the ‘Summer of Love’ that swept Britain in 1988. Media, politicians and police had turned against the rave scene by this point, with The Sun’s infamous ‘Evils of Ecstasy!’ headline marking the start of the moral panic.
“Tired of the same old nightclub scene? Then try a new experience dancing under spectacular laser lights at Shelleys”, ran an ad in The Sentinel in April 1989. The club had opened after a £180,000 refurbishment, with £30,000 coming from Ansells Brewery.
Around £50,000 of that money was said to go towards ‘the UK’S most advanced laser system’, and the rest went to stripping the old building. It had previously been a roller rink, cinema, bingo hall and shops, so it had prestige in entertainment – but never before like this.
The club’s first brush with national fame wouldn’t be through rave – rather, an Australian pop idol. Jason Donovan, of Neighbours, was helicoptered in to record performances for TV, and hundreds of fans made the trip in the hope of getting into the audience or catching a glimpse of him.
The real heights would come in 1990 when The Laserdome’s first weekly rave night, Sindrome, and its second, Delight, began.
Soon, people from across the Midlands and North West were making the pilgrimage to Longton for their nights out. New life came to a place that was rapidly losing its industrial identity.
Huge names brought and made reputations in Longton. Legendary producer Carl Cox regularly showed up, DJS like Sasha and Dave Seaman gained a lot of their early fans – people who would become mainstays in places like Ibiza.
From the outside, to people who didn’t engage with it, rave was a strange, unknowable, sometimes dangerous thing. To those inside, it was a big part of the best years of their lives.
Signs of the trouble that would haunt and eventually close the club happened early on. In June 1989, it was reported in The Sentinel that a fight had broken out near the club, leaving two with stab wounds.
Police kept their watchful eye on Longton’s drug-dealing and nightlife scene over the next few years. Operation Patriot was launched, a bid to combat drugs in the clubs.
One news article from April 1992 spoke of another weekly night at Shelleys, called Entropy, wanting to organise parties for 5,000 in Warrington, and for 15,000 ‘somewhere in Staffordshire’. Quotes from the police also ran in the story, talking of 200 arrests as part of their special operation, and warning of increased police intervention.
By June, 300 had been arrested, and the writing was on the wall for Shelleys as police opposed the renewal of its entertainment licence, and planning permission issues were revealed. The community rallied, including Stafford DJ duo Altern-8, with a 1,000-strong petition by July.
In September, Shelleys held its last club night, and one of the unlikely crucibles of the rave scene closed. In 1994, it would be demolished for the A50 upgrades, and the walls that housed so many fond memories came down with a crash.
But for a couple of short years, Longton was part of a cultural movement whose rapid success took everyone by surprise. Reunions and parties still happen under the Shelleys name, three decades later – that’s how central it was to some people’s lives.