Second Summer of Love

Second Summer of Love

Graffiti honoring Madchester of the Second Summer of Love
Date	1988 - 1989
Location	United Kingdom

The Second Summer of Love is a name given to the period in 1988–89 in Britain, during the rise of acid house music and the euphoric explosion of unlicensed MDMA-fuelled rave parties. The term generally refers to the summers of both 1988 and 1989 when electronic dance music and the prevalence of the drug MDMA fuelled an explosion in youth culture culminating in mass free parties and the era of the rave. LSD was also widely available and popular again. The music of this era fused dance beats with a psychedelic, 1960s flavour, and the dance culture drew parallels with the hedonism and freedom of the Summer of Love in San Francisco two decades earlier. Similarities with the Sixties included fashions such as Tie-dye. The smiley logo is synonymous with this period in the UK.

The Second Summer of Love began in 1988, with the rise of the nightclubs Shoom (run by Danny Rampling), Future (organised by Paul Oakenfold), Trip (run by Nicky Holloway), and the Hacienda (run by Mike Pickering and Graeme Park) was the start of the Rave scene in the UK. These three DJs were inspired to start these events after holidaying on Ibiza in the summer of 1987 with their friend Johnny Walker. Ibiza was where acid house music first became popular in Europe and the after-hours nature of the club scene emerged.

In the early stages of the Second Summer of Love, the events and parties were often held in empty warehouses and were essentially illegal across the UK. Information about these events travelled by word of mouth (as well as the newly popular mobile phone) between clubbers who were obliged to party incognito.