Wayne Anthony

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Genesis’88 was founded by Wayne Anthony, Andrew Pritchard and Keith Brooks at the very beginning of the Acid House revolution in the United Kingdom circa 1988. The initial idea was to stage a small event for friends and patrons. 300 people turned up at the warehouse that night so we felt proud of what we’d accomplished and decided to throw another event. By Christmas time 1,000 people came to Genesis’88 and then on New Year Eve 1988-89 we joined with Tony Colstonhayter from Sunrise and staged the biggest Acid Party in the country. In a very short amount of time we’d become the biggest party promoters in East London and amongst the top 5 in the country. At one point during 1989 Genesis’88 was the only organisation staging a large scale event each and every Saturday attracting crowd’s up to 15,000 people. Although a handful of promoters were staging regular small venue events Genesis’88 alongside Sunrise, Biology and Energy were the driving machines behind large scale warehouse parties. In 1989 Acid House promoters were declared Public Enemy Number One by the government and media who went all out to stop the people reaching their unknown destinations. Riot police and roadblocks became the normal practise as England rapidly approached its climax no-one knew where or when it would end. Genesis’88 earned their stripes the hard way choosing to break and enter warehouse storage facilities under the cover of darkness and confront law enforcement with fake documents claiming the building was legally leased. I (Wayne Anthony) would have to adopt a different persona each time I had to negotiate with police squads. It always helped to be regarded as a high flying music business executive such as George Michaels Assistant manager or head of Special Projects at Sony. For a time it did the trick… When Acid House hit the headlines Genesis’88 adopted a more direct approach to ensuring the events would happen. One method was to have at least 500 people at the venue that were prepared to stand their ground and not allow police to stop the party. It rarely came to blows…In reality that wasn’t what the scene was about. The ideology of the period was we were creating the foundations for something much bigger in the future. We felt it was too important and didn’t appreciate anyone trying to stop its progress. We quickly learned the art of moving thousands of people from one place to another in a matter of hours using nothing more than mobile phones, meeting points and pirate radio stations. Although we were independent Genesis’88 worked with the top names of the period including Sunrise, Biology, Energy, World Dance’89, Hypnosis and Weekend World. Genesis’88 were also instrumental in the promotion of the Freedom to Party Campaign and after parties later in the evenings. The public demonstrations were our way of showing the general public that we wasn’t the Son’s of Satan that the media reported frequently in their newspapers. We were also campaigning for the government to change draconian licensing laws and extend Music and Dance Licences to 8 a.m. This soon became a reality but for Genesis’88 our moment had come and passed… Viva La Revolution Wayne Anthony