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Cyberkids: crash and burn
The rise and fall of the cyberkids
They started out as Sheffield's answer to New York's Club Kids, brightly-attired, fun-loving teenagers seeking their own unique identity, and ended up as glowing identikit clubbers with dummies in their mouth. Former Mixmag scribe Alexis Petridis summed it up: "The choice was stark: you could either dress like a rapper or one of The Strokes and be in with a chance with the opposite sex, or you could dress like an imbecile and go clubbing." In this historic piece from December 1999, Miranda Cook tracked down some of the protagonists to try and find out what went wrong – and where the dummies were buried.
It's June, and Lotherton Hall is shining. From the glittery 'Gatecrasher' sign hanging by the gate to the blazing lights of the fairground to the silver-tipped spikes of clubbers' hair, the flashing bulbs on their shoulders, the lightsticks, the glitter: everything dazzles, glimmers and glows. Trance rips through the tents, people walk around with 'TUNE' painted on their faces, others have pipe cleaners or the word 'smile' made out of Woolworths' foam letters perched on their heads. But Little Jon, who's been haunting the dancefloors of Gatecrasher since its beginning, is faintly nonplussed. "I've never seen so many cyberfreaks in my life", he mutters.
It could be the story of any scene. A group of friends try out something different at their local club. They want to be individual, to stand out from the crowd. Others quickly join in and get involved, and before long it's spread and blown up all over the country. And that's when the cracks emerge; like fights like, and eventually the end looms into view.
Ten years ago house music set out its agenda. It was going to turn the band-idolisation of rock on its head and make the clubber the star of the show. But it didn't always manage it. For the most part, the superstar DJs ruled. Until 1999, when the clubbers took things into their own hands; for the first time since the beginning of house music, the real superstars were there on the dancefloor.
Little Jon is a 31-year-old electronics engineer. He lives in LA. Before he accepted the job that took him away from Sheffield, Jon was one of the Gatecrasher faithful. He first encountered the club at a one-off event at The Leadmill in Sheffield and from there, went to the monthlies at The Arches. But it wasn't until April 1997, when Gatecrasher moved to weekly nights at The Adelphi, a converted theatre, that Jon and his friends became devoted to the club.
"We really got into spiking our hair and spraying it bright colours", he remembers. "I began wearing more rings than I had fingers and lots of fluorescent bracelets. Planning the night's outfit and putting it together added to the excitement of going out. It's great to be part of that oneness you get when clubbing, but deep down many of us don't like to disappear into the crowd – we like to be noticed".
Karen Hartburn, from Chesterfield, who's 20, started going to Gatecrasher regularly when it arrived at The Adelphi. She hooked up with Jon and his friends. "The thing that stood out most at that time was that everyone was doing their own thing.
My friend Laura wore fridge magnets on her top; another, Rachael, made all her own clothes. Jon made his own flashing T-shirt. Another guy used to wear a furry skirt. We all knew Gatecrasher was special. I made so many close friends there. Dressing up was only half of it".
In March 1998, Mixmag took Little Jon and his gang to Cream, while Cream clubbers visited Gatecrasher. Jon had made his own T-shirt, with the Gatecrasher lion and the slogan 'Registered Addict'. "As far as I was concerned we were there to fly the Gatecrasher flag", laughs Jon. Like it or not, he was the first 'Crasher Kid.
The Mitsubishi Corporation had never had so much free advertising. A new and seemingly endless batch of potent pills flooded clubs in the summer of '98. Thanks to Tony de Vit, people had got a taste for the hard and fast things in life. That included popping pills with vigour. Club dress also got crazier. The Mitsubishi logo was sewn onto clothes, then painted on faces. Subtle glitter around the eyes turned into swirling collages of colour. Clothes went day-glo. Rave accessories like glowsticks, dummies and even white gloves reappeared. These clubbers were turning into a tribe: the cyberfreaks.
But they were a tribe without a DJ shaman to unite them. The circuit DJs had been hammering Euro trance tunes like 'For An Angel', 'Binary Finary 1998', 'El Nino' and 'Ayla', but it wasn't until trancemaster Paul van Dyk started playing regularly in Britain that the cyberkids found their messiah.
By April 1999, Gatecrasher had its own subdivision of the cyberfreaks: the 'Crasher Kids. On April 24, self-styled leaders UV Lee and Andy Bonner famously made a six-foot banner for van Dyk that read, "Would you please consider being our resident". That was the first night Matt went to the club. He was blown away by van Dyk's music and the 'Crasher Kids' style. "It changed my life," said the former curtain-haired beer boy. He is now known as Shiny Matt.
Summer rumbled into view and brought with it a record number of dance festivals. Homelands, Lotherton Hall and Creamfields were not simply places to lose it to great music under the stars. They were, as festivals tend to be, a meeting of the tribes.
Non-cyberfreaks witnessed such sights as human tune cards, silver-suited space cadets and thousands of people dressed up like extras from Sesame Street. The word spread. Trance stalked the charts, the anthem ATB's '9pm (Till I Come)' was the second-biggest selling single of the year. Trance was shifting more copies than Boyzone and S Club 7. The 'Crasher Kids' rallying cry was "Anyone can join in!". And they did.
Newspapers and magazines ran features on the phenomenon, visiting Andy Bonner's Gatecrasher shrine in his bedroom and spending the evening gawping at the colourful creatures hanging out on the stage in the club. The cyberkids were invincible.
In the early hours of March 7, 1999, 20-year-old John Easterbrook was taken violently ill on the dancefloor at Gatecrasher. He died later in hospital. The inquest's verdict was "death by misuse of drugs". The next month, Mixmag reported that Judge Jules was planning an "amnesty box" for rave toys. 'Leave your dummies at the door' was the message. Rumours quickly spread that it was a conspiracy between promoters Simon Raine and Scott Bond, along with cohort Jules, to spoil the cyberfreaks' fun, to stop them dressing up and enjoying themselves.
Probably closer to the truth was that the ferocity of the cyberkids' clubbing was getting out of hand. Comparisons with New York's Club Kids of the early 90s had been drawn. Both dressed up, made their own outfits and wore face paint. Both took a lot of drugs. And both had the capacity to self-destruct.
What the clubbers didn't understand was that the soon-to-be-famous glowstick ban at Gatecrasher was more about slowing the escalating cyberfreak culture of competitive pill-popping than it was about sapping individualism.
It was meant to stop things getting out of control. The cyberkids were, and still are, angry with their club. The more Jules spoke out against rave toys, the more they stuck to their space-age rayguns.
By summer, a hierarchy had begun to develop within the ranks of Gatecrasher clubbers. There were the high-ranking 'Crasher Kids, the apprentice 'Shinys' and lastly the 'tourists': normal clubbers who came for the experience. The divisions began to cause rifts.
One 'Crasher Kid told a magazine they "lived to be photographed". The main players took up residency on the railings of the stage, backs to the dancefloor, and gossiped about who had the most press – Andy Bonner told Mixmag there had been jealousy after he appeared in the mag. UV Lee was often seen quaffing Champagne in the booth with Jules. Andy heard himself talked about on Zoë Ball's radio show.
When asked if he still enjoyed the music and dancing, Andy said: "It's alright. But I've had to get dressed up twice this week and it takes ages".
The double dressing-up was due to Andy and Lee's appearance at the Ericsson Muzik Awards. Dave Beer threw a bottle at them when they collected an award for Gatecrasher. It didn't miss.
Nor were old-skool Crasherites impressed. Little Jon had flown 5,500 miles to be at Gatecrasher's fifth birthday in September. "I thought there was a lack of originality in the 'Crasher Kids' outfits and, to be honest, some had an attitude. They climbed onto the railings in front of the booth, blocking the view from the dancefloor. Then they sat waving their arms totally out of time with the music. At the end they stood there, too monged to dance. Some even sat on the dancefloor. I tried to talk to them but they were too up themselves to talk to a stranger. By the end of the night I was nearly in tears. This was the place where I had spent the best moments of my life, where I had laughed, cried, sweated profusely, fell in love and had my heart broken. Who were these people to come along and take that away from me?"
Gatecrasher is full to bursting on a Saturday in late October 1999. There are boys with spiked dog collars and red hair, homemade Gatecrasher lion T-shirts and Cyberdog trousers. The girls sport the odd hair toy, but are largely in standard club gear. UV Lee is still in his multi-coloured cycling shirt with flashing Gatecrasher badge, but he's easily the most alarmingly dressed. A lot of the cyberfreaks have opted for monochrome or are in camouflage colours. There are no foam letters, no glowsticks and hardly any flashing fairy lights.
A lot of 'Crasher Kids congregate on the stairs at the side of the club, letting in friends through the fire exit. This is where Mixmag meets Andy Bonner and Shiny Matt. Andy asks whether we know if there is going to be a total ban on dressing up, as one of the 'Crasher Kids had been turned away at the door the previous week. Matt looks on in admiration then introduces himself by showing me his McDonald's badge with 'SHINY MATT' and five gold stars on it. "We always go there before coming to the club", he says, "and they always laugh at us. But one of them made me this". Matt is part of a new generation of truly fanatical clubbers: "I went from Creamfields to Sundissential and back up to Gatecrasher in one night to hear Paul van Dyk," he says. He loves music. He loves dancing. And he likes wearing flashing lights and spiking his hair.
The following week, Mixmag bumps into Matt at Passion in Coalville. He's popped down the motorway to hear Judge Jules. And he's not dressed up. "You don't need to dress up to be a 'Crasher Kid," he shouts, helping us climb into the rafters to dance. He demonstrates his glowstick skills, and when JFK plays 'Bullet In The Gun" he phones his girlfriend (on his customised 'PVD' mobile) and leaves a message for her. He met her at Creamfields during Oakie's set. This is their tune.
An hour before the club shuts, Matt has to leave. He's going back to Gatecrasher for the last two hours, with his clubbing friends, a couple in their 40s. After that, he's off to his job, shifting boxes in a warehouse.
It could be the story of any scene. A group of friends trying something different at their local club. Others joiing in, getting involved, but before long it burns itself out. Blame Gatecrasher's door policy, the press attention, the decline in strong pills or the 'Crasher Kids themselves for creating divisions, but it seems the cyberkids as we know them have had their day.
In the UK, at least. On a recent tour of Australia, Gatecrasher's promoters encountered something they didn't expect. "It was mental", says Simon Oates. "All these kids were dressed up exactly like ours. Except they were calling themselves the Sydney Kids".
