大象传媒 Scotland - 大象传媒 Scotland - The early-90s rave that took place in a Stirlingshire safari park

The early-90s rave that took place in a Stirlingshire safari park

It may offer a “wild day out”, but Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling is less likely to shout about the wild night out to which it once inadvertently played host 28 years ago.

You look across and there鈥檚 elephants wandering about and lions, tigers and bears

David McCluskey

It was 1991, the start of the rave scene. Dance music pioneer Stuart ‘Scoobs’ Cochrane and his club promoter pals decided, as one does, to put on an all night rave at their local zoo.

As he recounted in a new 大象传媒 documentary, Scoobs & The Rave Years, it all came down to Stuart’s friend, who ran the restaurant in the safari park.

“He booked it in as a private function, like a 21st or something”, chuckled Scoobs.

David McCluskey was also in attendance that night.

“Going to the safari park is quite surreal anyway, but when you turn up with 250 mad ravers [...] and you look across and there’s elephants wandering about and lions, tigers and bears — it was brilliant.”

The Blair Drummond Safari Park rave

Stuart Scoobs Cochrane tells what is was like at the early raves

The documentary shows how the ‘second summer of love’ unfolded in Scotland in the 1980s and 90s.

According to many of the programme’s contributors, acid house music had a positive affect on the local rivalry between young men.

“Before the dance music exploded, there was a lot of fighting.”

Although the programme revisits many happy memories for Scoobs and his part in Scotland’s dance scene, it also explores the toll this lifestyle took on his mental health.

Scoobs admits he has large gaps in his memory and missed out on at least two lucrative opportunities because of the drugs he was taking and the bi-polar disorder with which he was eventually diagnosed.

One of those opportunities was losing out on what was to become a huge hit record that you may recognise: Sunchyme by Dario G.