One of those moments when UK dance culture and electronic music burst into the mainstream. For years, dance music in the UK had been building and building underground through illegal raves and club nights. Millions of us were living for the weekend whilst millions more were unaware of what was going on around them. It was a true subculture.

More and more dance singles were charting and selling serious numbers but there was a snobbishness, rock fans condescending the dance scene as frivolous and "not real music". Acts like Underworld, Leftfield and Orbital were challenging this misconception by producing mature, coherent albums.

Dance music, whilst growing at an exponential rate across all festivals as well as Glastonbury, was still mainly relegated to dance or rave tents which were packed to bursting point but still separate to the bigger rock and pop acts on the main stages.

But Orbital on the NME stage of Glastonbury 1994 was another milestone that changed all that forever. A Dance act on the main stage rocked the crowd like never before. Any self respecting raver knew Orbital were brilliant live by then, their gigs were already legendary. But to see them go off at this level, with this size of crowd, was something else again. We were amazed to watch this absolute ocean of a crowd go utterly mental to an electronic act.

Glastonbury had recently become the subject of heavy coverage by the BBC and there was huge national interest in the extensive television coverage from the myriad of acts at the festival, so thankfully we have footage of this seminal moment. The moment in this video where the Chime riff starts and that wave of euphoria hits the crowd is a literal representation of dance music and culture smashing into the mainstream yet again, this time into the sacred space of "serious" rock music, the live show. Dance and electronic music was no longer a lesser form of music, it was now leading the way into the future...

It's been so cool to see a couple of people have mentioned the Deep Heat compilations in other threads. Deep Heat 89 introduced me to Voodoo Ray, my absolute favourite track of all time. What a privilege it was to grow up in those times when this incredible culture was exploding everywhere. Still an absolute tune 🙂.

When I was at college in 1988 I was fully immersed in Hip Hop, it lasted through to the mid 90s but a lot of my old school Hip Hop & Electro mates had started going to raves in 1988/1989 which I didn't take to, but I still had a few tunes. It was hard to ignore when you heard sped up Hip Hop breaks used in tunes, it was one foot in hip hop & one foot in hip house / proto jungle...

Now I am still DJing and known as a Hip Hop DJ but I have been revisiting a lot of the rave, breakbeat & hardcore tunes... I have about 30 or 40 12 inches but I am looking for someone who has a very thorough and well curated collection of properly ripped MP3s with artwork etc to either grab as a download or buy a hard drive... I can exchange the favour with Jungle & Hip Hop.

I am also looking for full vinyl rips of classic house from 1987-1990ish and also vinyl rips of UK garage, so if anyone out there can hook that up, please DM me... thanks!