In Stockholm, Sweden, for forest parties
Outdoor dance parties took off in the summer of 2020, when the clubs closed due to the covid-19 pandemic – and they haven’t stopped since.
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Jand trailing and exhausted at 2 a.m. on a Sunday I followed Ludwig Millberg, my new, 23-year-old Swedish friend, out of the subway station, down empty residential streets in the Västberga section of Stockholm, past parked cars and scooters, under a bridge with graffiti. I was ready to call off our quest for several hours to return to my bed near the window on the third floor of the Hotel Frantz, enough time for eight hours of sleep and a free, sumptuous brunch.
Then Millberg, an engineering student at Stockholm University, pointed to a dusty clearing under the trees. There it was: DJs manning turntables on a stage lit with bright white light, a disco ball hanging by a wire above 100 Swedish dancers in T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. It was like walking out of a suburban industrial park into David Guetta‘s campsite. Millberg, also known as Kassettludde, a DJ who uses cassette tapes to play his dance music mixes all over Sweden, had finally brought me into Stockholm‘s forest rave-party scene.
How did I, a 53-year-old Denver, Colorado, music journalist who likes to be in bed by 10, get to this point? On a European vacation last fall, Sven, a former music label executive in Sweden, informed me that these outdoor dance parties had taken off during the summer of 2020, when clubs closed due to the covid-19 pandemic. “How do I find them?” I asked. “Just listen for the boom,” he said. I did‘didn’t get a chance then but returned for a bank holiday in June.
I googled listings for outdoor dance events and found Facebook groups like “Trance Raves in Stockholm, Sweden,” which often list hastily organized events that pop up at the last minute. I did‘I don’t want to miss anything when I’m in Stockholm for a weekend, so I asked Sven to recommend a guide. That‘that’s how I found Millberg. “We could go to a club or a bar and have a drink and get ready!” he said. “Raven starts when clubs stop.” What time? “Three to five.” In the morning? “That‘is the best part! Thepp will be a sunrise. The‘is quite nice.” Jet lag, he said, would help me stay out all night.
I had met Millberg at 10pm on a Friday at Mosebacketerrassen, an outdoor restaurant. Introverted and soft-spoken, with a luscious beard, Millberg had connections everywhere: A bartender at Hills, a bright pub with a house music DJ on the bustling stretch of handsome Södermalm, dropped everything to deliver Millberg his gluten-free beer; the bouncers lifted the ropes at Södra, the city’s oldest theater, so we could take the elevator to a packed bar and listen to pulsating music with a view of Stockholm.
But as the night wore on, Millberg and I began to fail spectacularly in our endeavor. It was cold and rainy. Millberg lent me his mother’s bright yellow raincoat as we roamed the city listening to dance music in the wooded suburb of Norra Djurgården, near Stockholm University. We gave up at 4:30am and tried to Uber home – without Wi-Fi – from a Circle K convenience store.
The next day, a Saturday, I was sleepy, ready to break the story, cut my losses and enjoy my remaining time in Stockholm. I took my favorite lap around Södermalm, an island with moored ships and paths in and out of the forest. I had a comfort food dinner at a Swedish meatball restaurant, Köttbullar ät folket.
Then I psyched myself up again. Here is dance music history. Outdoor raves began in Stockholm in the early 1990s, when techno music scenes spread from the UK and other parts of Europe to Sweden, and DJs began packing clubs and cafes such as Dockland and Svaj. It was not‘t always fun: In 1996, the police saw dance music events as havens for illegal drug use and cracked down. (Today, a spokesperson for the Stockholm police says that outdoor raves are legal if organizers get a permit.)
The scene persisted, as Stockholm’s location in forests meant that festivals and other events took off outdoors. During COVID, summer 2020, media reports showed 700 attendees at a forest rave. “It became more normal for people who didn’t‘don’t usually go to raves,” Viivi Hyvonen, 24, told me at the Västbergafest, known as Gården, an annual summer event since 2014. Here DJ duo Bike Thieves mixed obscure American soul and disco tunes with house music. People of all ages danced under the trees – a forty-something guy in a hat and glasses swayed to himself near a fence, and Millberg and his friend Joey joined the scrum of youngsters digging wildly in front of the DJ table.
“Is this good?” Millberg asked me after a while. “Did you get what you needed?”
I nodded as the sky brightened from pitch black to an otherworldly light blue. We could not‘I saw the sunrise, but the party felt like a rebirth, the thump somehow both relaxing and energizing. Millberg continued to dance as I stumbled home around 3:30 on the subway. I woke up just in time for Sunday brunch.
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