Notes On A Rave explores early days of Irish underground dance music scene

IN THE late 1980s, a hurricane blazed a multi-coloured trail through a section of Irish youth culture. In this revolution, rock music was pushed aside as some kids lost themselves in the delirium of electronic beats.

The grooves were relentless, the fashion questionable, the legality of the events often dubious. The age of the rave had arrived.

The fraught relationship between the Dublin clubbing scene and ‘official’ Ireland is chronicled in an absorbing new documentary. Notes On A Rave, premiering this weekend at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival, traces the capital’s dance underground, from its roots in the 1980s gay movement to the existential crisis it experienced as clubbing went mainstream and the authorities cracked down with a vengeance.