Anti Rave Gig 01-02-1992, squatted bank Mile End Road, Whitechapel

Held in a squatted bank in whitechapel,

this was busted quite violently by police. One of several parties/gigs in squatted venues which were busted in typical shows of heavy handed police approach around that time
including also: The Hell House squatt and another squatted bank in peckham, (this list is by no means exhaustive) which were all busted over quite a short period of time, maybe a couple of months at the most.

Parkaj Mental the opening band had just started playing when apparently a couple of P.O turned up outside, they were told they could not come in and apparently some slightly (or was that very?) pissed individuals started roughing them up a bit,  a that point they called for help and next thing you know there were cars vans and officers from all over London turning up truncheon drawn out and charging in.

Due to the table that was being used for collecting donations on the door being in the way we didn't manage to actually close the doors and after about a minute or so of trying to keep them out by holding the door closed the truncheon battering on our hands was too much and the (small comparatively to the actual amount in the place) people trying to keep them out caved in in and the police came charging in hitting people left right and centre.
I remember being stuck just in front of the entrance by my rucksack which was wedged somehow in a corner and a copper coming at me truncheon drawn and ready, I was waving my hands in front of me and must have looked suitably scared as luckily for me he veered course and went after someone else.

I remember that while this was going on, the people trying to hold the door closed were some of the organisers and a bunch of regular people while the tough looking supposedly hard north London crusties from the school of bullying were frantically looking for a way out the place of which there wasn't one.

All of this obviously put an end to the proceedings, quite a few people got nicked and there was also a subsequent bit of punk hunting by the police in the surrounding areas for the rest of the night, at least one person I know of being set upon while walking home later and being beating up then arrested.
For my part I reunited with the 2 friends over from France that were there with me and we stuck around for a bit helping to recover the P.A. equipment (for the man whose name I can't remember now, but which did most of the P.A. work for a lot of the squat gigs around that time. He used to turn up with his P.A. in his black cab if that rings a bell to you and you can shed any light on this) and band equipment and whatever the police would let us get back out of there.

This also spelt the end for the squatted cinema next door where a gig was to be held the following Saturday (of which more later in another post).