LOCAL TEENS READY TO RAVE 'N' ROLL

The Reporter purchased tickets for a writer and photographer to attend two
Bay Area raves. They accompanied several Vacaville teens, who spoke freely
on the condition that their real names and images not be used in our series.
Both reporter and photographer identified themselves as such to organizers
and partygoers, and were universally given permission to share the rave
experience - Editor.

It's 10 p.m. on a cool Saturday night near Oakland's waterfront, and Angela
and Michael can't stop moving.

Karate kicks. Bunny hops. Boundless energy. The Vacaville teens are ready to
rave.

They don't know where the night will take them, but that's half the fun.

Angela, 18, gives "little brother" a piggy-back ride for a few minutes.
Michael, at 16, is her buddy and rave partner, but not her boyfriend.

They blend right in with the crowd, hundreds of teens from across the Bay
Area, chatting, laughing, waiting.

They've each purchased $20 tickets to an all-night dance party - Fantasy
2000. A phone recording led them to this dimly lit rendezvous point at
Fourth and Alice.

Suddenly, murmurs ripple through the crowd. A siren blares briefly as a
police cruiser pulls up to the curb.

"I'm seriously doubting that this thing is gonna go on," comments one
24-year-old rave veteran from Sacramento.

Within minutes, the crowd disperses, without hassle or fuss, in groups of
twos, threes and fours, piling into cars.

Michael and Angela follow suit, cell phone ready for the next set of
directions.

Their destination, a rave, is not a place, it's an atmosphere. Beyond
school, beyond part-time jobs, beyond extracurricular activities, beckons a
blend of insistent beats, peer acceptance and drugs.

Every weekend high school students from Solano County migrate to the Bay
Area to attend parties with names like Serenity, Flight and Cyberfest.

Ravers insist the foundation of their dance-till-dawn culture is a brand of
computer-generated music brought to life by the stylistic maneuvers of their
favorite DJs.

However, the scene has become virtually synonymous with the designer drug
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA. The drug, which releases a chemical in the
brain, stimulates feelings of well-being and heightens sensations.

Debate rages among medical experts about its long-term effects. Some deaths
have been linked to the drug, which is quickly gaining popularity throughout
the nation among teens and young adults.

As for Ecstasy's champions, raves are the ultimate place to use because,
they say, the atmosphere enhances the drug's effects.

Others say popping Ecstasy is not a prerequisite for having fun at a rave.

Yet both agree raves offer an irresistible vibe partygoers can't find in
other social settings.

The dancing is what drew Angela to her first rave. While the 1999 Will C.
Wood High School graduate has experimented with Ecstasy, it's not what
brings her back.

The Solano Community College student likens rave dancing to a spiritual
escapade and bemoans the media's tendency to link the parties with illicit
drug use.

"I personally feel the music is like a religion and the DJ is like a
preacher," Angela says. "Every dance affair I go to, I party sober."

"When you're on E, you can't think," she says. "You're hecka stuck.
Sometimes you get into deep thoughts and emotions you didn't know you had
come out."

Michael, a junior at Will C. Wood, is still testing the waters.

An honors student active in campus government, he tried Ecstasy for the
first time in October.

Since then he's taken it three times - each time at a rave.

"E makes you feel so happy," Michael says. "It changes your whole body. Your
senses are like five times more."

He started going to raves his sophomore year because he wanted to try
something new. He took Ecstasy at his first party.

"Right when I got in, I was glad I was there," he recalls. "It was like a
whole other world. Everyone's friendly and hugging you. I felt very
comfortable."

Tonight's party will be small compared to the "massives" staged at
fairgrounds and other large venues. Only 450 tickets have been sold.

It has all the markings of an underground event. The bright,
computer-generated tickets, purchased at a Berkeley music store, list only a
schedule of DJs and a hotline number. The venue is unknown until the last
minute. Many times, the facilities are ill suited for large crowds.

Such problems have led to recent crackdowns in the Bay Area on promoters who
stage parties without obtaining permits.

Organizers of "legitimate" raves hire emergency medical technicians and
off-duty police officers to check identifications and turn away anyone under
18.

As a result, underage ravers are driven further underground.

That's why tonight's "Party Central" is a mystery. No one seems to know how
many organizers there are, who they are, where they work or where the final
destination will be. All the kids need to know is the hotline number that
will bring them to the right door for a night of dancing, drugs and hugs.

Angela and Michael are cruising the streets of Oakland, ready for the next
clue. Apparently, the owners of the San Francisco venue where promoters had
hoped to host the party backed out at the last minute. When directions
finally come in, they're short and to the point: Return to the parking lot
at a restaurant one mile from the meeting place, stay in your cars and wait.

"Please bring your positive attitudes and big smiles. We love you," chirps
the anonymous female voice on the hotline.

Just before midnight, a young woman named Heidi with stick-straight blond
hair and ethereal eye makeup appears behind the wheel of a white Expedition.

Follow me, she commands.

Carloads of partygoers fall in line, forming a caravan dozens of headlights
deep down the street. Vehicles wind through the back streets of Oakland,
stopping outside a nondescript converted warehouse in the downtown area. Due
to the building's rundown appearance, it's affectionately known to ravers as
"The Crack House."

There are no security guards searching people for drugs or weapons.

As hundreds of ticket holders stream toward the narrow metal door,
organizers decide it's too much, too soon. Some groups get in, others get
held up.

"This is a zoo," says Angela in frustration as she gets past the door.
Michael is left behind.

"That's my family back there," she says.

A short time later, organizers realize that hundreds of teenagers on a quiet
street might bring the very police attention they are trying to avoid.

They hustle a new set of guests - including Michael - through the metal
doors, down a long hall and beyond a thin wooden partition that swings open
onto the rave.

* Tomorrow: The rave is on.