What was it like throwing illegal raves back in the late 80s?

Huge sound system, bar too big for the venue, lost an absolute fortune and absolutely loved it.

It was brilliant.

What was your journey like before you got to become a rave promoter?

I'd had a pub for the three years prior.

There was murders there.

There was gunfighting.

Someone coming one night on a motorbike through the door.

I don't think I've one regular, I would say, oh he's a straight guy. They're all crackers. As soon as you talk about a pan, though, things change. And here I was at Wembley back in the dressing. People coming in left, right and centre McCartney, Elton John, Bowie. The madness of everyone getting boozed up, having tear-ups and fights, And then all of a sudden, in late 80s, people found ecstasy.

Welcome to the Eventful Lives podcast. I'm your host Dodge and I'm the founder of Bournemouth Sevens, the world's largest sport and music festival.

On this podcast, I speak to proper characters of all lived eventful lives. Do us a favour and hit that follow button

and be sure to check us out on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Dodge Woodall, where we've

now had over 100 million views. Joe, welcome to the show, mate. Yeah, thank you. Let's roll all the way

back. What was it like throwing illegal raves back in the late 80s?

It was brilliant.

The cat and mouse, you know, the stuff that went with that, you know, you're doing something very, very different.

You're a little bit green, a little bit naive because, you know, as much as I've done, you know, stuff involving, you know, music and

it was nothing like that. This was another level, you know, going out, getting in where ours is,

you know, making them right, making sure you can come on top, and then, you know, taking into account

whose manner are you on? You know, is everything going to be all right in that respect? And then just that euphoria of your party starting and getting to morning. To me, that was the thing. You know, if it doesn't matter what you're doing, if you have an event and it gets to morning, you've won. You've done it. You've pulled it up, whatever you want to call it.

And, you know, from that first one where, you know, we've done certain things, you know,

we'd gone in a fire station or an appointment with the fire officer.

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