Picture this: a rebellious European adventure in a double-decker bus-turned-party-hub with 20 of your closest pals, basking in youthful camaraderie while visiting a heap of wild underground parties and festivals. Pretty crazy, right?In 1995, UK-based photographer Tom Hunter and his friends lived out every teenager's greatest fantasy as they travelled throughout Europe in Le Crowbar, a multi-level bus that was converted into a mobile home and café. The story of Le Crowbar has subsequently garnered quite a bit of attention, in no small part due to Hunter's candid, slice-of-life photographs of the era's counterculture. VICE spoke with Hunter in 2014 and chronicled the tales and photos of his life aboard a travelling rave bus.
Yet, after two years of peripatetic, uninhibited partying, Hunter decided to pass the beloved vehicle onto the late Gary DS of punk band 2000 Dirty Squatters. The future of Le Crowbar was uncertain. "I remained friends with Gary," Hunter tells THUMP, "then, after a few years, I heard that the engine had split open and the bus was destroyed." "That was devastating," says Hunter, "I was really upset to hear that it ended up going to a scrap yard."
Photo Courtesy of Tom Hunter
Despite Hunter's belief, the bus was never in fact destroyed, thought it had been abandoned. According to an article this month from the BBC, a dilapidated vehicle was recently discovered along a roadside in France matching the description of Le Crowbar. "Some bus enthusiast found it," Hunter tells THUMP. "The guy from the scrap yard had put it on the side of the road as an ad for a flew market. [The bus enthusiast] drove past it, took a photograph of it, then he contacted the Welsh Cardiff Bus Association and tracked me down."
Although Hunter has yet to be reunited with the now legendary bus, he hopes to have it restored for his children, who he envisions will one day take it on their own rave-centric adventures."Modern day life is so much about going home, locking your front door, going on your computer and thinking about what you have to do the next day," he says. "It's so planned and meticulous and boring. Something quite magical happens when you let go of the home and the job."Tom Hunter is on Twitter.Rebecca is on Twitter.
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