Blog: Look Who's Saying Yes

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I met Mr S Hewitt for a cheeky pint of MILD (there is not other kind) last night before we made our way to the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, where I was due to play at the "Look Who's Saying YES" night. I was VERY VERY VERY EXCITED INDEED about this - it was organised by the Yes To AV campaign, and as a former teenage member of the Electoral Reform Society and a LIFELONG ENTHUSIAST for Voting Reform In General (go on, ASK me about my proposals for a tricameral re-organisation of the UK political system! PLEASE!) this is something I can VERY MUCH get behind.

The club is a PROPER Working Men's Club, which means it had wood panelling and PROPER Club Tables, and was full of The Young People. At one point I was talking to some of them and one said to another "That's because I'm so much older than you." He was TWENTY FIVE, and they all agreed this was OLD. My dears, I felt positively ANCIENT.

It was bloody GRATE being there and seeing people Actually and Actively CARING about something... tho I did get the impression lots of them were trying to GEE themselves up to be properly excited about it, and that maybe not everyone is QUITE as excited as I am about the prospect of voting reform... but then, as stated, i am VERY excited about it, and did maybe perhaps GO ON about it a bit much when I did my set, which went something like this:

The Peterborough All-Saints Wide Game Team (group B)

The Gay Train

I'm Saying Yes

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Boom Shake The Room

Why yes, that IS a new song in the middle there - I'd been PANIC LEARNING it all day long and I think I pretty much got to the end in one piece. It was a nice gig, if slightly DISARMING in that I was on a stage looking into the lights and could VAGUELY see people sitting in rows, possibly looking SERIOUS. I wasn't sure how it was going - Terry Saunders had been GRATE just before me and I wasn't sure if i was meant to be being a) funny or b) STERN, nor was I sure which of the above was required. The other three of my first four songs were chosen because, i thought, they might be RELEVANT but when I got to the end I thought "To heck with it, EVERYONE liks Boom Shake The Room, right?"

Everyone DOES like Boom Shake The Room, yes, and I got to play it to a whole room full of people who were suddenly confronted with the fact that they knew pretty much ALL the words. It was a MARVELLOUS thing to watch happen, as it always is!

Afterwards there was an INTERVAL during which a DELEGATION came over and we had a talk about maybe using I'm Saying Yes in a video or something, which i am EXTREMELY keen on, and then in the second half we LARFED and nodded at All Round Hero Josie Long who is, basically, becoming The Comedy Billy Bragg. She was GRATE!

And then we strode out into the night, with me feeling particularly full of RIGHTEOUSNESS - I've not really done many Campaigning Gigs, partly because the sort of things i feel PARTICULARLY strongly about don't tend to be the sort of things that get GIGS organised around them, so this felt BRILLIANT. It's one of the few gigs I've ever done that I think Teenage Me would have been pleased about (he usually thinks I'm just messing around when I should be writing plays and/or leading the SDP or something) so it was nice to have his approval for once - I hope I can continue to make him proud between now and May!

posted 1/3/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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	(e.g. for an animal that says 'cluck' type 'hen')