Rave Culture: A New Era (Australian Premiere) at Vivid LIVE, 31/05/26

Cassidy Newman reviews …

Accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack and featuring British rave legends such as RatPack, Fabio, Grooverider, SL2, and Leeroy Thornhill from The Prodigy, Eduardo Cubillo’s Rave Culture: A New Era invites us to travel back in time to when the DJs spun vinyl, the molly was pure, and Maggie Thatcher was in charge.

Rave Culture: A New Era invites us to travel back in time to when the DJs spun vinyl, the molly was pure, and Maggie Thatcher was in charge.

There is no denying that this film is crafted with love for the genre and the movement as a whole. Focusing exclusively on the very beginnings of rave culture in the UK from 1989 and not going beyond 1994, it’s hard not to get nostalgic watching. This was reflected in the audience––the Opera House’s Playhouse was filled with fifty-something year-olds who seemed to be transported back to their golden days, dancing in their seats and whispering to each other “I remember that!”. 

Whilst the film is a fantastic retrospective on UK rave culture (even at parts crossing the sea and looking at its beginnings in Tenerife), it lacks a real look at the social and political context of the movement, only skimming the surfaces of issues such as UK counterculture, police and government intervention, the role of women in the era, and rave’s power to stem the growing spread of racism in the UK, particularly in football hooliganism. I would have liked it to really probe what made rave culture important. At times, it did just feel like old DJs were given an opportunity to go on and on about when they were most relevant. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing––like I said before, Cubillo obviously has a deep appreciation for the culture and wanted to share that, but I was left wanting more.

At times, it did just feel like old DJs were given an opportunity to go on and on about when they were most relevant.

Overall, this film is filled with some great footage from the era, fantastic interviewees, and an outpouring of love from a comprehensive cross-section of the community at the time. It did feel like nostalgia-bait at times, and I would have appreciated a deeper dive into its context, but it provides a fun look back at what is, in my opinion, one of the most important musical movements.