I was never one for rave culture. To me the notion of spending the 1990’s listening to repetitive music, in rooms that is an abandoned warehouse by day, surrounded by drug-dropping drama queens is akin to a ten-year root canal.

But after watching HIGH ON HOPE, I’m able to see where my theory is flawed. Just like so many things, what began abroad as a true expressionist movement, became a cheap, imitation shadow of itself by the time it reached North American shores. The me that was of the age in the 1990’s in Canada couldn’t have cared less about dance music culture. But had I been of the age in the 1980’s in England, and been witness to how the whole scene began, I could easily be singing a different tune here today.

HIGH ON HOPE is the documentary of how the 1980’s UK dance scene began. It is told by the people responsible, and the people who were there. It isn’t content to just lay down the “what” – it wants to be crystal clear in explaining the “why”.

Turns out the genesis of underground, illegal parties in questionable locations were actually a true form of rebellion. Its beginnings were feats of great ingenuity and defiance: heists worthy of Daniel Ocean and his eleven. Led by a select group of organizers and innovators, the movement was about giving people a chance to have a good time without judgement in an era where your status was determined by whose label was stitched on your jeans.

The documentary is well balanced, giving the audience not only a true dose of what it was like to be a part of the community, but also who the people responsible were, what they believed in, and what the consequences were for breaking the law so flagrantly.

So what I thought I knew was wrong – the drugs, the flakes, the repetitive music. There was actually a lot more to it – ideals that I believed in then and still do. But like many good ideas, something just got lost in the translation. A 1990’s me might not have cared very much for the rave scene, but the 2010’s me certainly did care an awful lot about learning where it all came from.

Take that for what you will, but please pass me my headphones and turn the volume up.

HIGH ON HOPE plays North by Northeast on Thursday June 16th – 6:00pm at Toronto Underground (186 Spadina Avenue).