AUSTRALIA – 45’

E - Generation

LIN BUCKFIELD: On any given weekend, tens of thousands of young Australians indulge their passion for an electronic beat.

MAN: You've got 5,000, 10,000 people come in these things. It's almost like a collective consciousness of beliefs and systems regarding the world, society, how we live, cultures, etc.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Dance culture isn't just dancing. Relentless electronic rhythms carry ideas about art, about having fun, using drugs and alternative politics.

LEXIE: I think, you know, people think they become an adult and they enter this non-fun zone. Um, I still so feel like a kid and I don't ever want to stop feeling like that.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Tonight on Four Corners, the dance culture. We invite you to the party and meet the people dancing beneath the mirror ball.

SIMON PAGE, CEO HOME NIGHTCLUB: About 100,000 kids per weekend throughout Australia go out dancing in dance music as we know it today.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Five years ago, Simon Page gave up an executive day job to run a nightclub.
His success indicates that dance culture has, over 15 years, grown from parties in the gay community and urban warehouses to reach huge numbers of young people. Yet it still remains one of the least understood of modern subcultures.

SIMON PAGE: And I think we've tried to do it with a real appreciation of keeping it real so that even though we've spent, you know, $10 million on a nightclub, we still try and create an underground feel and say that it's about music. We're not just trying to take your money. And we wanted to still give that feeling of chaos and anarchy which people want when they go out to a nightclub, but really having it very safe.

PAUL CHAMBERS, EDGECORE RELEASES: I think you can trace a thread between the '60s, the punk movement, the dance party movement. Yeah, they're different but they're similar at grass-roots expressions of culture. The dance party culture is probably bigger -- already bigger and more global than the punk culture and the '60s hippie movement. And it's got elements of both those movements and a whole lot more.

LIN BUCKFIELD: The peace movement of the '60s saw middle-class kids reject technology, especially its role in wars. Today's dance culture has a familiar motto -- peace, love, unity and respect -- but by way of contrast, embraces technology. In the punk movement of the '70s, working-class kids tried to smash the prevailing mainstream.

The political end of the dance culture also uses the rhetoric of anarchy, but is less violent, more inclusive.

Simon Page's club HOME caters to 2,000 kids.

It's a one-stop club with 16 DJs playing in four areas dedicated to different electronic genres.
Contemporary dance music is bewildering to the uninitiated. It can all just sound the same. But a myriad of styles coexist. Techno is sometimes used as an overall term but techno is really a subgenre. It has a fast relentless beat with little or no lyrics and hard-edged electronic sounds. House still uses a driving beat but there's more melody. Drum and bass has an emphasis on syncopated drum beats and heavy bass lines, with some vocals. Here, punters breakdance in a style that grew out of the poor black American inner cities.

JASON KINNIBURGH, PROMOTER, ADVENTJAH: The traditional raver motto is PLUR which stands for 'peace, love, unity and respect'. In our programs, we actually write in the introduction that if you can't bring one of these, don't bother coming.

FERGUS: It gives us the freedom to express who we are without any backlash from society or anything like that.

KELLY: It's like the music's our god.

FERGUS: Yeah. The music is like our god, exactly.

KELLY: It is. You just follow it. It's, um -- I don't know. It's like a release. You know, you can dress like this. You can wear bright colours. You can be happy. You can dance like an idiot.

FERGUS: Yeah.

KELLY: And you can just release. And it's accepted as normal.

FERGUS: Yeah.

KELLY: You don't have to be a good dancer or be funny.

LIN BUCKFIELD: The development of the synthesizer, samplers and drum machines has allowed dance producers to mix underlying rhythms with fragments of familiar songs and electronically generated sound.

This new music has produced a new star -- the DJ, the men and women who play the records.
The favourite tool of the DJ is the old-fashioned turntable.

JOHN FERRIS, DJ: The DJ is the thing that counts. They're the ones that are generating the noise. And even though, you know, on the one hand, they're just playing other people's records. That's true. That's all they are doing. But often those records are made specifically for a DJ to manipulate. And so the DJ becomes another step in the output or the experience as such.

JAMIE: I thought change it from that song, mix it across with a cross-fader. What I done is I listened to it, counted it. One, two, three, four. Brought it in. Fairly simple mixer. It just allows you to do a few things. But a lot of it, yeah, is just getting your beats at the same time. A really smooth mix is very important to a DJ, I guess.

LIN BUCKFIELD: These days, everyone wants to be a DJ. Jamie, like a lot of his peers, is practising the art. DJs are the new pop stars. CDs compiled or mixed by them are big sellers.

Two years ago, DJ turntable decks outsold guitars for the first time in the UK. Overseas DJs can command huge appearance fees. At the New Year 2000 celebrations, two British DJs were paid over $100,000 each to play parties in Australia. More recently, Fatboy Slim headlined this festival and his name on the bill pulled in 6,000 punters.

MAN: DJs to some extent are replacing live acts because they're producing records, then they get a fan base as a result of that and record deals, obviously, so people can buy the record. For example, Fatboy Slim is here today, doesn't play live, he's just a DJ. But he's a producer in his spare time. As a result, masses of people will flock to see him.

YOUNG WOMAN: You feel so powerful. You can do what you want. You can move as fast as you can. You can shut your eyes. You can put your arms up. And no-one looks at you. No-one's judging you. It's just like freedom. And you're just releasing all that energy, like dancing and hands up. And it's powerful. What can I say? Powerful.

LIN BUCKFIELD: The dance culture prides itself on a lack of aggression and unlike traditional partying, rejects excessive alcohol.

BROOKE: Like the last time we went to a sort of pub trying to be a nightclub, I was walking up the stairs and got groped by a guy and I just turned around and just pushed him back down the flight of stairs. And you know, that was just like such a -- (Gasps) ..you know, "I can't believe she just did that," because all the other girls are just like -- (Giggles inanely) ..taking it. And that's one thing that we don't like going to pubs for. But Jamie and I have been together almost 12 months and two weeks ago was the first time we've ever gone to a bar and had a drink together because it's just not something that we're interested in plus because they don't have the style of music that we like there.

LIN BUCKFIELD: The rejection of traditional pubs and clubs means that dance culture thrives largely away from mainstream Australia and remains mysterious to it.

LETITIA: Everyone's afraid of what they don't know, I suppose. They weren't exposed to it at their age and they're basically seeing -- Well, you know, people go to bed at 10:00 at night. The idea of people staying up until 10:00 in the morning is scary to them and obviously you need drugs to do that. I know that if my grandparents or my parents came to a party that I went to, they'd freak. (Giggles) They'd completely freak. But you know, that's just all about being from a different generation. And I think in 10 or 15 years time, the dance culture's going to be something that everyone just accepts as part of life. The police will be a lot less harsh on it. And as far as the older generation not liking it because of drugs, drugs happen everywhere, not just in the party scene. And that has to be realised and accepted. Like sometimes, people go to parties to take drugs but if the parties weren't there, they'd go to their friend's house or to someone's party or you know, to a park. It's definitely going to happen anyway.

LIN BUCKFIELD: If party goers reject alcohol, they still have their own drugs. A variety are used in the dance culture, but it is ecstasy that has become synonymous with that scene.

CONSTABLE GERMANOS, QUEENSLAND POLICE: Everyone here is, you know, is here to have a good time. You know, you probably don't really expect a lot of fights, that sort of -- you know, that sort of behaviour. And that is probably more common with pub scenes, especially with, like, alcohol. Like, you know, you'd be a fool not to realise that a majority of people here are on drugs. And generally, you don't try to get -- ...you don't seem to get as many problems as what you do with alcohol in pub scenes.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Dance party punters are known for nonviolent behaviour. It makes policing them an easy job. But the dilemma for police is that an illegal drug may be contributing to the good vibe. After the 2000 celebrations in Sydney went off peacefully, the 'Sydney Morning Herald' quoted a Bondi police officer as saying it may have been due to the crowd being on ecstasy rather than alcohol. This produced an angry denial from the NSW Assistant Police Commissioner.

FERGUS: With society, there are drugs wherever the hell you go, you know, left, right and centre, you know. Pubs -- alcohol, drugs. Rock concert -- people stoned off their nuts, whatnot. There are shitloads of people on drugs here, yeah. So bloody what? You know, it's just a part of -- It's a part of society on a whole, you know. I'm not talking about this, but everywhere else, you know.

KELLY: The reason I think -- OK, this is my opinion. The reason I take drugs at raves is only to -- Because you know, the music, you got the beat, you know… I go to the gym, I got heaps of energy, I can dance. But after -- what?- two hours, your legs are so sore. You've got hours to go. The only way to get through it is to take the drugs. That's the only reason I do it. I don't take it to get off my head or to enjoy the music. I enjoy it but I need to dance. And also, I mean, come on, it feels so good when you do it anyway, so --

DR LIBBY TOPP: Sort of two or three grams, maybe?

MAN: Two grams in a weekend.

DR LIBBY TOPP: Have you been arrested in the last 12 months?

MAN: No.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Dr Libby Topp is the National Co-ordinator of the Illicit Drug Reporting Survey. She's interviewed over 400 ecstasy users since 1997.

DR LIBBY TOPP, NATIONAL CO-ORDINATOR OF THE ILLICIT DRUG REPORTING SURVEY: It appeared in the dance community in Australia, first. And, you know, definitely it is still very widely used and associated with that group, but in the 10-15 years that it's been widely used here it's spread beyond that group. And there's just a huge range of people, people who use ecstasy regularly who have never been to a club or a rave. So I think it's fair to say that it is very strongly associated with that group, but it's a mistake to think that all people who take ecstasy are ravers. That's not the case at all.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Ecstasy is the street name for the drug MDMA patented in Germany in 1914.
It stimulates the brain's production of serotonin which gives a sense of wellbeing. During the 1970s, MDMA was prescribed by American psychotherapists as an adjunct to counselling. It was outlawed in the US in 1985. That didn't stop the drug gaining global popularity. Some promoters acknowledge that drug use does happen at dance parties. Those that do allow peer education groups like Rave Safe to get out amongst the punters and help minimise harm.

KERRY, RAVESAFE, QUEENSLAND: We try to catch them before they fall. We try to educate them. "Rehydration, rest, refuel and recover" is our motto. We aim to educate people on how much water they should drink, on remembering to rest and to eat before they go out.
All those types of issues that people tend not to think about -- they just go out and party. We try to educate them on how to do it safely, really.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Ecstasy reduces the body's ability to cope with heat. Users risk overheating and dehydration as a result of strenuous dancing in a confined environment. Rave Safe say there are some basic rules -- "Rest for 15 minutes of each hour, "drink 500ml of water or juice per hour, "and seek help if feeling unwell." Mark is 21, a uni student in his final year of computer sciences. He's been going to dance parties since he was 15. He first took ecstasy three years ago.

MARK: People do take those drugs, but it's not all that the dance scene is about.

I mean, you can still go and dance without the drugs.

LIN BUCKFIELD: What about yourself?

MARK: Yeah, I've had -- I've tried the drugs, and, yeah, they're fun, but I'll go out straight plenty of times and still have as good a time.

CAM: I first tried it, um -- one night, I went out to a club, and I had a friend organise, you know, organise it for me, and it was a bit of an eye-opener.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Cam is 20 and completing a diploma in hospitality at college.

CAM: You just had a different view on the world, a different perspective of things. It just gave you a better understanding of why people take it. Because it's just a different feeling, you know, rather than being drunk and out of it, you're actually livened up and you feel a lot more empathy towards other people rather than being violent and drunk.

BROOKE: This is the belt collection. No, I used to like going out and really decking out in a costume.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Brooke and aspiring DJ Jamie hold down regular jobs. They moved from the coast to experience life in the big city.

BROOKE: ..so as long as I'm comfy in pants and sneakers.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Brooke's first experience with ecstasy was at her first dance party.

BROOKE: I was just about to turn 18, and with a group of other friends who had tried it before. Um, so they very strongly held my hand the whole time through it. Um, I've never -- ..it's never something that I'll take for granted. It's always something that I know that there's huge danger in taking, and there's also a huge element of fun in taking it as well. But it's something that, um -- I'm a pretty level-headed person anyway, so it's something that I'm very precautious of taking. And it's not something that we take every weekend, and it's not something that we necessarily need to take to go out.

DR LIBBY TOPP, NATIONAL CO-ORDINATOR, ILLICIT DRUG REPORTING SURVEY: They're likely to be relatively well-educated, so almost all ecstasy users have done at least Year 12 or are currently completing their school studies. They're likely to be employed or engaged in full-time studies. They've got very little contact with social authorities. So, compared to, say, a heroin user, they're not showing up for treatment, they're not being arrested and showing up in court, they're not going to hospital, they're not showing up in the morgue. So it's quite a different sort of group to your typical stereotype drug user in that they're relatively well-functioning. Basically, you'd have to be honest and say they're normal people. They're your brother or your son or your cousin. They're people that you know.

REPORTER: According to those close to her, Samantha Jean Kitney's last three months have been a living hell. Last October, she supplied ecstasy to Anna Wood and two others at a North Shore dance party --

LIN BUCKFIELD: In 1995, teenager Anna Wood died at a dance party. It was the first ecstasy-related death to make the headlines in Australia. Anna died because she drank too much water which caused her brain to swell.

ANNA'S MOTHER: The message is strong and clear that ecstasy can kill. It's rare, but it can, and it has to be treated with a great deal of caution.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Her mother began a public campaign against the drug. Anna's death highlighted an important lesson -- kids should never be too afraid to call an ambulance if a friend is in trouble. The ensuing publicity branded the dance scene as a dangerous subculture, but inside the dance scene, kids were unimpressed by the demonisation of the drug.

CAM: With what the media's saying, it's more like, "Don't take ecstasy, it can kill you." It gives it a negative -- I mean, it's a drug in that it's illegal, and that's as far as it goes, but it's misinformation. It's not -- they're not exactly telling the truth. There's a lot of people that go out there and try drugs and say, "Well, I've tried it and I didn't die, "so what happens now?"

LIN BUCKFIELD: In their search for information about the drug, the Internet has become the place for ecstasy users to go.

CAM: I didn't want to go jumping in to trying ecstasy without researching what it's going to do to my body, what negative effect it's going to have. So I went on the Internet. There's a site called Erowid and there's a site called Bluelight as well -- Web community of ravers, or people that take ecstasy. And I researched that and found out what it was going to do and that's how I made my decision to take it -- was from the information that was on the Internet.

PAUL DILLON, INFORMATION MANAGER NAT.

DRUG & ALCOHOL RESEARCH CTR: As an educator, I think this is one of the greatest problems we have -- how do we get across messages about long-term effects of ecstasy? We just simply don't know. Lots of research is being conducted, looking at long-term users and trying to identify trends.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Death from ecstasy can happen but is very rare. Nevertheless, the jury is still out on what other damage ecstasy can cause. Recent research shows that long-term use might damage the nerve fibres which release serotonin to the brain. Psychologist Brendon Boot has collected the latest data.

BRENDAN BOOT, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Serotonin is a very important chemical in the brain. It's involved in the regulation of mood, cognitive processes, learning and memory, and quite a few housekeeping functions -- things like maintaining body temperature, sleep and wake cycles, appetite and many -- quite a few different things. And so, if you damage this system, then you are more likely to suffer a few problems, particularly things like depression.
You'll be more prone to depression. And you'll also be more prone to having difficulties with memory.

CAM: When I first tried it, I went out a few times -- you know, maybe once every few weeks, and it sort of got a bit too much. If you go out on a Friday night, come Monday, you feel a little down, a little depressed. And a lot of my friends decided to go out a lot more. They'd go out every weekend and maybe take ecstasy, you know, four or five times on the weekend.
And seeing them the next week, depressed and not quite with it, was really an eye-opener to say they're abusing the drug, rather than enjoying it. So, if I'm going to take ecstasy now, I'll take it maybe once a month.

BROOKE: I guess it comes down to individuals. I know certain individuals who aren't responsible on drugs, but they're not responsible on any sort of drug -- legal or illegal.

LIN BUCKFIELD: There's a good reason why this generation is sometimes nicknamed the 'chemical generation'. It would be a mistake to assume that this is a group which automatically pops pills of dubious quality.

MARK: People just don't realise that there are ways to look after yourself -- that it doesn't have to be so dangerous. There are dangers involved, but there's dangers involved with anything, and with all drugs as well, including the legal ones.

LIN BUCKFIELD: How do you minimise the harm to yourself?

MARK: Uh, well, there's a few different ways. Back when I first started going out, I'd just listen to what other people had said about the pill that I was going to take. But these days, there's testers.

JOHN DAVIDSON, ENLIGHTEN: Under Australian law, the circumstances could inform the idea of possession. We could not plead ignorance as to not knowing what was in the pill. So it's in our best interests to let the punter deal with the handling themself.

LIN BUCKFIELD: John Davidson is a spokesman for Enlighten -- a self-funded harm-minimisation group, which tests pills at dance events. They use kits which are legal in Australia and are easily obtainable. Here, John is testing a placebo.

JOHN DAVIDSON: So we ask the person to show us the pill so we can write down what the logo is, measure it -- that sort of thing. We scrape off two tiny bits onto a ceramic plate, like this. We only need a small amount. Then we take the testing liquids. First, we use the E one, the first one -- the Marquis Reagent.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Ecstasy is mainly manufactured in Europe. Australian-made pills rarely contain true MDMA. More likely amphetamines or a dangerous adulterant.

JOHN DAVIDSON: No, if this contained ecstasy, that liquid would've gone purple. And, actually, both liquids would've gone purple. If it contained amphetamine, this one would've gone orange. If it contained ketamine, this one would've gone an orange-brown too.

A lot of Australian pills contain amphetamine, which, by itself, is dangerous, but not overly dangerous, but ketamine is a common adulterant in pills, and this is an anaesthetic, and a dissociative anaesthetic, which can lead people to freak out and have bad times.

But there's more dangerous substances, like PMA, which have been around in Australia for about ten years now.

This is a copycat version of ecstasy and it's quite a dangerous amphetamine, as the lethal dosage is probably only about four or five pills. Now, about ten people have died in Australia over the last ten years. This is one thing that we can identify with these tests. It's our hope that if we identify these at a rave or an event, we'll be able to get the word out and let people know that these pills are bad. If the pill contains ecstasy, it will give a purple or black result, If it contains speed or a speed-like substance, it'll give an orange result.

LIN BUCKFIELD: John independently filmed this test at a dance party. This time the pills were real. The results show that the pill contained MDMA -- the active ingredient in ecstasy. You would be quite willing, on the basis of the result, to decide not to take the pill or to take it?

MARK: Oh, definitely. If I get a bad reaction -- something which shows that either there could be anything in the pill or there's speed or DXM or PMA or something which I wouldn't want to take, I definitely wouldn't take the pill.

LIN BUCKFIELD: However, drug information officer Paul Dillon warns that tests may give users a false sense of security if they believe that a pill containing only ecstasy is safe.

PAUL DILLON, INFORMATION MANAGER NATIONAL.

DRUG & ALCOHOL RESEARCH CTR: One of our greatest problems with ecstasy use is that users are more and more believing that this is a harmless drug -- it's benign. And I just don't think that's true. You know, anybody who works in the field, anybody who has dealings with nightclubs, clubs, has seen the negative effects of this drug. And in its worst consequences, of course, we've had death. People do die as a result of MDMA overdose. People do die as a result of ecstasy-related harm -- overheating, dehydration. We need to accept that there is harm.

LIN BUCKFIELD: At the club HOME, Simon Page is very safety conscious. In 1999, a man died at another venue run by Simon. The man, who had a congenital heart problem, is believed to have died after taking a cocktail of illicit drugs. Simon says the drug issue will not go away.

SIMON PAGE, CEO HOME NIGHTCLUB: We really confront the whole use of drug issue head-on. I went to the police and openly discussed it with landlord, council, police. And even though, with all due respect to the media, the media likes to sensationalise things, I think most of society accept that the war on drugs is lost -- that kids are going to experiment. Whether we think they should or whether we think they shouldn't is actually irrelevant. That a 'just say no' approach is plain naive.

LIN BUCKFIELD: HOME, like all dance clubs, must pass muster. Security is tight. Punters are searched on entry.

SIMON PAGE: We built this room about 12 months ago, and it's been a godsend. There's actually 32 cameras throughout the whole club and we can go to all the different areas.

LIN BUCKFIELD: The club has a state-of-the-art airconditioning system. Fresh drinking-water is freely available. If security do find drugs, they will call the police though it's not a responsibility Simon enjoys.

SIMON PAGE: I think that people have this perception that there is this thing called a drug dealer. That's also very naive because the drug dealer is probably your daughter or your son or your best friend's daughter or son. And it might be some young girl who's just turned 19.
She's celebrating her birthday, she's out with 15 mates and she's bought one pill for each of them to have. We stop her at the front door, call the police, and suddenly her life has fundamentally changed because she's got a criminal record.

CAM: Even though I may take illicit substances, it doesn't mean that I'm a criminal. It doesn't mean that I'm going to go and rob people of their money. I have a job. I work hard in my job. I make my money.I save for goals.

MARK: Well, if they're going to make assumptions about me just because I take drugs, then I don't really care what they think. I know what kind of person I am. I know I'm doing well in uni. I've got a good steady job. So it's not really ruining my life, is it?

LIN BUCKFIELD: Drugs are not the only controversial thing about the dance culture. At one end of the spectrum, there is the underground dance scene and its relationship with radical politics. Imbued with politics, but with an emphasis more on art, is record producing dance collective Edgecore Releases. Edgecore parties stress music, performance art and difference.

PAUL CHAMBERS, EDGECORE RELEASES: A real mixed collection of people are attracted to that scene. It kind of includes a lot of people that don't fit in in a lot of other scenes. And I think that's really good. It's totally pro-diversity. I think the people are the stars for me at a dance party. You know, it's not really about a band being up on stage, watching a band or anything like that.

Or even, I think, a good party's not about particular DJs.

It's a vibe.

The stars of the dance party are on the dance floor, for me. And it's just a good feeling, you know.

LEXIE: So you want like -- sort of --

FRIEND: Yep, eye things going up like that.

LEXIE: We go to these parties because we want to, you know, expand our minds and we want something a bit more interesting. d we want to be in a group of people that want to love each other. are all wanting that sort of connection with the rest of the world but it just doesn't happen because the world is pretty hard. Especially living in a city can get to you and it's nice to go into a space and be able to be free and run around and be yourself and forget about all that sort of stuff.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Where Edgecore tend to focus on music and performance art, other groups in the dance culture take a strong environmental line.

MAN: What we're doing today is we're re-vegetating which we want to grow in this area. 150 years ago, when the goldmining took place, the whole area was cleared. And so a lot of weeds have grown in that time.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Tranceplant are a green dance collective. They plant trees in the bush and then throw a party to celebrate. It's a non-profit organisation that works with local LandCare groups. Electronic techno sounds seem incongruous in such an organic setting, but it works for these bush regenerators.

SUSIE, TRANCEPLANT: One of the important things for me is that it's celebrating and finding a positive use for technology, and the music is an expression, um -- that is positive and technology's very often seen as a very negative thing, especially from an environmentalist's point of view. And it's just using that knowledge for good instead of evil.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Other collectives are more vocal in wanting to change the ways of the world. Oms Not Bombs has legendary status in the underground dance scene. It was established in 1995 as a response against French nuclear testing. They were active in the recent S11 and M1 protests. They also campaign against uranium mining and for Aboriginal rights. Oms Not Bombs throw multi-media dance parties to get their message across. Tonight, didg player Charlie McMahon is a special guest with techno group Organarchy.

PETE, OMS NOT BOMBS: We believe that we're doing it wrong. The whole system is sort of out of control, and it can't really last much longer. So we think there needs to be a bit of a change, all around the world, in the way things are done, in order to, um -- continue existing.

LETITIA: I think the people that go to parties do know a lot about what's wrong and what's right about the world, and they know a lot about uneven distribution of money, 'cause a lot of us are at the wrong end of the stick as far as that goes.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Letitia has just turned 17. Dance music and activist politics are her passions.

LETITIA: The politics has really only been a recent thing. A lot of the people that I got to know are going to these protests to talk about human rights, and that was something that's always been in me, but I've never really gone out and done any of it. And the first major protest I went to was S11 last year. And, um -- that was really, really full on and I learnt a lot there.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Last year, Letitia was among the techno activists that came to the attention of the mainstream media. S11 anti-globalisation protesters tried to close down the World Economic Forum in Melbourne.

PETE, OMS NOT BOMBS: A lot of communication in the dance culture goes on on the Internet.
There's a lot of -- lot of protest organised around the globe through the Internet. And reviews and cross communication after events have happened, you know, and ways where things may have gone wrong or -- But, you know, in this whole, um -- rising slow revolution that's going on around the planet, it's, um -- I think it's a very important thing -- that people feel the confidence that they can change their lives.

LIN BUCKFIELD: There was a rerun of S11 this year when activists got together on the old socialist anniversary, May Day, to protest against what they see as corporate greed. Activists used the Internet to organise the rally. Four Corners followed the progress of the Oms Not Bombs techno bus as it attempted to provide a musical soundtrack for protesters down at the Sydney stock exchange.

OMS NOT BOMBS KOMBI DRIVER: Someone took my keys. They're stolen. The police have stolen the keys. They must be working for Bob Carr and John Howard. These police are mercenaries. There's no violence. This is a Love Parade vehicle. It's a love bug. It's a Kombi. It's been attacked and raped. My keys have been stolen.

CHANNEL TEN NEWS READER: The Sydney street battle -- 34 protesters arrested, 30 police injured as huge crowds stormed the city stock exchange. Then anger turned to fear as the demonstration against corporate profits descended into chaos.

REPORTER: A mounted surge against a sea of protesters, police desperately driving them back within the agreed boundaries of their demonstration. The violence started when police tried to move an unauthorised van, the Peace Kombi, from the protest area. As one protester tried to steal the tow truck, he was arrested. The violence lasting more than two hours -- a street battle sparked by a single unauthorised vehicle.

Shaun Fewings, Ten News.

PETE, OMS NOT BOMBS: We marched with the students from Town Hall, and suddenly the police diverted our vehicle away, from their march, so we just came down here anyway and put on some music, and they immediately came in hard, trying to drag people out and everything --

We set up the music, they tried to take it all away, but the people gathered round, the tow truck came in and it wasn't able to be put on the tow truck because everyone stood up for what we believe in which is peace through music, you know -- bringing people together through music.

PIPPA: I love dance music and I'm pretty into politics as well, not through choice but just 'cause I have to be. I want to have some sort of say in my own future and the future of the planet as well, 'cause they're the same thing. You can't have a good time on a dead planet. You won't get a job on a dead planet. It's the same thing for me.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Protesters used digital cameras to film police and media. The tapes would later be used by activists to analyse the protest.

Pippa is a veteran of techno activism. She's travelled Australia partying and campaigning against uranium mining.

PIPPA: I really don't understand why they hate techno music so much -- maybe because it unifies people or because they've got samples in there of them being ridiculous. But they seriously hate it.They want it to stop and go away and I don't know why. Anything that involves kids getting together and having the same ideas and doing stuff seems to be in some way controversial, maybe because people are worried if young people get together in big enough groups we can change the world.

LIN BUCKFIELD: Electronic music is the soundtrack, the dance floor the autonomous zone where a generation articulates ideas about itself and about what it wants the world to be.
It's 7am in Brisbane. Fergus and Kelly's night is winding up. Fergus and Kelly, how are you feeling now?

KELLY: F---ed.

FERGUS: Not too bad, actually.

KELLY: Not good. Not good.

FERGUS: I'm feeling alright.

LIN BUCKFIELD: But, Kelly, when we spoke to you at about 1 o'clock this morning you felt really powerful.

KELLY: Powerful, yeah. Now it's opposite. Crash bang, feel like I'm going to die. It's like you go from powerful to absolute shit.

FERGUS: That can happen after any strenuous work-out.

LIN BUCKFIELD: But is it still peace, love, unity and respect?

FERGUS: Oh, yeah, fully. I mean, look around. Like, even though, you know, people are starting to come down and whatnot, you don't see anybody shoving around and giving people evil looks. It's still got that collective consciousness around --

KELLY: There is a little secret, though.When you're high or when everyone's at a rave enjoying it, you all make eye contact and look at each other. In the morning every is like "Don't look at me. Don't look at me." It's like you can't. It's really weird, hey.

FERGUS: Oh, well. You get that, though.

LIN BUCKFIELD: For now the party is over. But this scene will be replayed around Australia, around the world, week in, week out. And the exhaustion of the morning after will soon be recharged by the urge to dance again.