‘We were cheeky outlaws getting away with it’: the total euphoria of Liverpool’s 90s club scene

From abandoned factories to snooker halls, pre-superclub promoters dodged police to put on some of the UK’s wildest nights. Former ravers recall how they supercharged the city

‘The acid house scene in Liverpool in 1988 was really tiny,” remembers Sonia Martelli. “You could recognise each other because we were all wearing smily face T-shirts and we’d be at the same night.”

And once that one acid house night had ended – Daisy, run by James Barton, Andy Carroll and Mike Knowler at the State – there were even fewer options for ravers to keep going. “People would break into disused warehouses or old supermarkets in Toxteth,” recalls Martelli, one half of the DJ duo Girls on Top. “There was another place we called the Scrappy, which was a rave in a scrap yard.” Another party was held in the abandoned Tate & Lyle sugar refinery: it was such a vast space that when the police turned up it would take them so long to reach the ravers at the other end of the building, they had enough time to pack up their PA into nearby trucks and scatter.

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