Do you have any memories of the Clacton Mystery Trip?

We would love to hear from you !

Mystery Trip 3 Handbill

Mystery Trip 3 Ticket

Mystery Trip 3 Ticket

Our ticket just said ‘meet at Liverpool Street Station, London at 5.00pm’, so we turned up there to find the platform overflowing with hippies, punks, goths and other assorted freaks, much to the surprise of Joe Public who thought it was some sort of Freak Show and at least one bunch of Japanese tourists stood there firing off flash guns at us while we waited for the trains.

At some point the Alices crew, led by the inimitable Christian Paris arrived and ushered us onto the trains and we were off to nowhere...

As everyone began to get loaded there was much talk about where we might be ending up and many exotic ideas were bounced around the carriages during the journey.

After a while the trains pulled into a station and we were herded off onto a fleet of waiting coaches and soon afterwards arrived at a disused Butlins Holiday Camp in Clacton, Essex.

This massive venue had several rooms packed full of weird and strange things, including the Alice In Wonderland Psychedelic Disco, The Shiva Photonics Light Show, the Alien Monster cabaret show, the Dead Dog Promotions ‘Completely Off The Wall Show’, circus acts, poetry and other weird and strange things.

There were many bands playing during the night, including Doctor and The Medics, Ring Of Roses, Magic Mushroom Band, The Treatment, The Volcanoes, Voodoo Child, Perfect Disaster, The Surfin’ Lungs, Another Green World and Bad Acid & The Spooks.

To be honest most of the night is a very hazy memory but I recall being totally blown away by Ring Of Roses, standing there transfixed through their entire set and I have vague memories of The Medics set and possibly, but not for sure, I remember Voodoo Child being very good too and I can remember staggering around in a state of torpor and wandering into the Wild West decorated bar at around 4.30am and seeing the Magic Mushroom Band going for it full on, complete with liquid lightshow and dancers which was all a bit much at this time of night!!

There was also a corridor somewhere that’s walls and ceilings were covered in what might have been camo netting and there were stuffed toys impaled on the walls with stakes, complete with fake blood!!!. Possibly at one point the netting started to fall down and to get down the corridor you had to fight through this netting on your hands and knees...

At the end of this corridor was some kind of tent like structure with Another Green World playing and some movies/adverts being shown on a TV screen inside. Beyond this was another hall with the Alice In Wonderland Psychedelic Disco in full force, packed with heaving, half naked bodies who thrashed and flailed to massively loud Freakbeat and psych classics all night long.

There was a girl wandering around wearing nothing but cling film that had green jelly inside it which squelched and shifted around her beautiful body as she walked, there was someone who sat on the end of a diving board cross legged, hands outstretched, praying to something in the dawn sky....someone else was noisily doing backstroke in the swimming pool, not very strange you might say?, except for the fact that the swimming pool had not had any water in it for five years!!!!.

I am fairly sure too, that there was a man dressed up in a complete space suit who walked around all night, as if in zero gravity........There were nubile naked girls...there were people in full Edwardian costume and there were people with painted bodies.

A very good friend of mine, somewhat the worse for wear after a green microdot was peaking just as a Shiva Photonics laser beam passed his raised hand and carried on it’s lazy arc around the room. He looked at his hand and his jaw dropped and then slowly looked left and then right before returning his gaze to his hand, still held up high in front of his face.

He began stroking his hand, periodically holding it to his chest and eyeing us all suspiciously and then holding his hand high again waiting for the green beam to emit from his hand again...this went on for what seemed like hours.

At some point in the night we bumped into The Doctor and we chatted about music in a lysergically distorted way....everyone we bumped into was tripping off their faces.

The event drew to a sad close and we walked like zombies out into the bright daylight looking like survivors from a nuclear attack and staggered onto the waiting coaches. The station was quickly reached and the chaos began, getting several thousand tripped out lunatics to get on train and sit down.

There was one dude, stripped to the waist who ran up and down the platform waving his arms in the air and shouting and wailing at the top of his voice, which was top class entertainment at this time of day I can tell you!!!

Very confused British Rail staff looked on in fear at the freaks trickling onto the trains with pale drawn out expressions and zombie like eyes and they looked relieved when the train finally pulled out of Clacton Station.

Hours later we were despatched back at Liverpool Street Station and the Day-Glo army slowly went their separate ways and slowly dissolved into the London crowds...

Pooterland People (who miss Alice's...)

Review from Sounds Magazine

Do you have any memories of the Clacton Mystery Trip?

We would love to hear from you !

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