Can you be a raver in your 40s? I decided to revive my life on the dance floor
A few years ago, while battling another chaotic family meal prep, I dreamily reminisced about the ’90s. Those heady times of glitter hair gel, fluoro crop tops and chunky sneakers.
Opinion
January 1, 2026 — 8.00am
January 1, 2026 — 8.00am
A few years ago, while battling another chaotic family meal prep, I dreamily reminisced about heady times of glitter hair gel, fluoro crop tops, flared jeans and chunky sneakers.
It was the late ’90s. Grunge was out. Techno was in.
Raves were held in the grimy depths of Melbourne’s underground car parks, train stations and industrial warehouses over the West Gate Bridge. No mobile phones, no parental surveillance, just unadulterated electronic dance music in a sea of grinning, sweating, glittering bodies.
The punters get live and sweaty at a Docklands rave in 2001.
We danced in synch. The infamous Melbourne shuffle, a unique marrying of the running man with arms thrusting, accompanied by intricate hops, jumps and 360-degree spins.
Then the unthinkable happened. Raves were banned. And we grew up.
We took out loans, and wore ill-fitting suit jackets. We opened and shut down businesses, got married, got divorced. We had children and researched the best grass seeds to cultivate a healthy lawn. We considered the innovation behind degustation menus and pondered deeply over bathroom tiles.
It’s difficult to know if we were legitimately adulting or collectively “playing grown-ups”.
Either way, on the eve of my 40th birthday, I frantically wrote a to-do list and launched head first into Operation Midlife.
Gastroscopy – tick. Skin cancer check – tick. Mammogram – tick. New grown-up career for the ageing me – tick.
I also decided to revive my life as a raver.
Perhaps it was this existential crossroad, or that for the first time in 14 years I could go a day without breast milk / baby spew / remnants of mushy food smeared into my “going out” clothes, or because I’d reached that wondrous nonchalant midlife point of unashamedly strolling into Aldi in trackies.
But I made a commitment to put on my shoes (equipped with insoles for maximum arch support), get in front on some bass-heavy music and dance like no one was watching.
To achieve this, it meant making my grand re-entrance into the land of (age-appropriate) clubs and festivals. So I searched and scrolled until my entire Instagram algorithm evolved into a grainy quilt of flashback reels and upcoming event fliers.
