PUNCHING THE LIGHT

Simon Burstall keeps having flashbacks. Nearly every day for the past year, memories of thumping raves – the ones that shaped his teenage years – keep catching him off-guard.

It could be a car park packed with loved-up strangers still dancing at 10am; train stations filled with light so piercing that it could rip through your eyeballs; the smile of a DJ who died way too soon; old people shaking their heads at the waste of youth.

The Australian has been busy making a book about that time, so it makes sense that these scenes have been coming back to life. But even when he’s busy doing something