Tony Davis photographed the 90s rave scene in Nottingham, Coventry and the Midlands between 1990 and 1992. His photographs include DiY events at Nottingham’s Marcus Garvey Centre, nights at Venus and Kool Kat, The Eclipse in Coventry, and the gatherings at Sandbach Services after Shelley’s Laserdome in Stoke-on-Trent.

Davis had grown up around football terraces, punk and Northern Soul, attending all-nighters at Wigan Casino as a teenager. When rave culture emerged at the end of the 1980s, he approached it as someone already familiar with the music, movement and social life surrounding British youth cultures. His photographs were taken from within the scene, but with the observational distance of a documentary photographer.

The series is not confined to clubs and dance floors. Davis also photographed the journeys, cars, service stations and early mornings that formed part of a night out. Together, the photographs document a regional rave circuit linking Nottingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and the spaces in between, offering a distinctive view of British rave culture at the beginning of the 1990s.