Portraits of revellers at the birth of Northern rave culture
- Text by Ella Glover
- Photography by Steve Lazarides

When Steve Lazaridez began taking portraits of people dancing in the UK’s first illegal raves, he couldn’t predict how people would react. “He went from this kind of vitriolic, spitting in your face, ‘fuck off or I’ll kill you,’” recalls the British-Greek Cypriot publisher, photographer, collector and curator, of the time he unknowingly asked a man who had just come out of prison whether he could take his picture. “Then, 10 minutes later he came back and said, ‘right, my pill’s kicked in, you can come and take my picture if you want.’”
It was around 1992 and Lazarides was a 22-year-old photography student at Newcastle Polytechnic. With a budget that stretched to just one roll of film a night, he decided he wanted to capture the emergence of the enigmatic UK rave scene. Now, 30 years on, these photos are collected in a new book titled Rave Captured.

Lazarides says that rave culture was never exactly his scene, but he’d wanted to show a different side to how it was being portrayed by the fear-mongering press. For Lazarides, the scene was more than what he calls in the book “a simmering pot of depravity,” but a place where people went to express their freedom. “It was the mass lawlessness that appealed to me,” he tells Huck. “I’ve never been one for rules and regulations at the best of times and, to be there, seeing everybody breaking it on a mass level, was quite something.”
As someone with bipolar and ADHD, both undiagnosed until his mid-40s, Lazradies has always been attracted to subcultures. First, it was graffiti, then skateboarding. Then, he tells Huck, “While I was at college, the Bristol scene sort of unfolded in front of my very eyes – I still kick myself to this day for having never taken a single picture of it.”
Still, he felt like an outsider to the rave scene. “It was a privilege to be granted access because, as with most subcultures, the only pictures that really count are the ones that tend to be taken by people that are already immersed in something.”

Despite a certain wariness of cameras from within the subculture, mostly due to the demonising press reports and a lack of non-press photographers around at the time, Lazarides began to gain people’s trust: “I’d go to the rave and I suddenly started seeing some of the same characters there, so there was a little bit of camaraderie.”
It’s this trust, he believes, that allowed him to take such authentic portraits – and that’s why he’d always asks permission before taking a photograph. “When you take a good portrait, it does have a bit of someone’s soul in it,” he says. “You get some feeling for who the person is, and that’s a big ask. That’s why I maintain, if you haven’t got the bollocks to ask someone if you can take their photograph, you don’t have the right to take it.”
It wasn’t easy – for every ‘yes’, he recalls, he would get about five “fuck off or I’ll kill you’s”. But, he says, you need to spend time with the people you’re photographing. “You can still get those off-key portraits,” he says, “You’ve just got to put the time and effort in.”

The rave scene erupted out of the ruins of Thatcher’s Britain which, especially in the North East, had decimated industry. “Suddenly, you’re watching a society trying to repair the wounds of a fucking lunatic,” Lazarides says. “And people just wanted to step out and fucking party.”
He continues: “You can only feel glum for so long, before you have to slap on your war paint and your armour and go and live life.
“It was us against the state; It was a big fuck you to the press and society, without it really being about that. People weren’t doing it as a mass protest, they were doing it because they wanted to have a good time again…But I’ll tell you what, it didn’t feel like we were losing.”




Rave Captured is available to purchase here.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
You might like

Largest-Ever Display of UK AIDS Memorial Quilt Opens at Tate Modern
Grief Made Visible — Comprising hundreds of panels made by lovers, friends and chosen family, the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt returns in full for the first time since 1994 – a testament to grief, friendship and the ongoing fight against HIV stigma.
Written by: Ella Glossop

In Medellín’s alleys and side streets, football’s founding spirit shines
Street Spirit — Granted two weeks of unfettered access, photographer Tom Ringsby captures the warmth and DIY essence of the Colombian city’s grassroots street football scene.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Huck teams up with Eastern Margins for a special SXSW London showcase
From Shibuya to Shoreditch — Taking place at Village Underground on Monday, performances will come from MONO, Nina Utashiro, Ena Mori, Jianbo, LVRA & Soda Plains.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Block9 reveals its Glastonbury Festival 2025 plans
Party and protest — The nightlife hub will feature a bigger-than-ever Saturday daytime block party across The NYC Downlow and Genosys, and a huge collaboration with artist-activist group Led By Donkeys.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Dalia Al-Dujaili: “When you’re placeless, nature can fill the void”
Babylon, Albion — As her new book publishes, the British-Iraqi author speaks about connecting with the land as a second-generation migrant, plants as symbols of resistance, and being proud of her parents.
Written by: Zahra Onsori

We are all Mia Khalifa
How humour, therapy and community help Huck's latest cover star control her narrative.
Written by: Alya Mooro