Blog: Yes Again

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I headed off BACK to Bethnal Green yesterday afternoon to play at a mini-rally for the "Yes To AV" people. Originally I was just going to be ATTENDING a MAXI-rally where people of all parties were kicking off the main campaign... but there was TROUBLE with E Milliband refusing to share a platform with N Clegg, ending up with labour taking their speakers away to talk at their OWN event with their OWN speakers, so YAR BOO SUCKS to YOU. Gosh, I wonder why those Rainbow Coalition negotiations didn't last very long?

ANYWAY, this left a hired VENUE going spare, so the "Yes To AV" bunch decided to do use it to do an EVENT called "Hipsters Say Yes", whereby people would go out into nearby Shorditch to put up posters, hand out leaflets and generally be ACTIVE. They asked me and a couple of other people if we fancied turning up afterwards to play a "thank you" GIG for the activists and I said "SURE THING!"

I arrived to find the organisers looking a bit apologetic - apparently not as many people as they thought had turned up, and they'd emailed me and the other performer who'd agreed to coming, warning us of this and saying we therefore might not want to bother. It's funny how one person's idea of a crowd differs from... er... mine. Any number above ZERO counts for me, and it was SOMEWHAT more than that so I was very happy to stay (unlike the other chap, who decided not to - for shame!) and happily wandered off to the nice pub next door to get a lunchtime HALF while we waited for everyone to come back from ACTIVISM.

I'd taken the afternoon off so was a bit DEMOB HAPPY and so EAGER for daytime drinking... so imagine my HORROR when I went next door to find it was CLOSED! The DOORS were open and there were people inside, but when I went in and STOOD NEAR THEM for a minute or so they eventually told me it was SHUT. One guy looked like he hadn't slept for a week, the other wore a beard and pleated skirt, and both looked at me with SCORN. SHOREDITCH.

I therefore went BACK to the venue, had a cup of coffee, then upstairs again to find people gently filtering back. I sat down, apologised for the fact that their "thank you" was something many people have said "no thank you" to in the past, and did THIS:

I Did A Gig In New York

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

I'm Saying Yes

Before I started i felt a bit nervous, as we were after all in a conference room at three in the afternoon and people were LOOKING at me, but though I did perhaps GO ON A BIT trying to explain the songs (before starting I'd thought "Hmm, what songs do i have that could apply to a raggle taggle band of rebels, fighting adversity and winning out in the end? Oh yeah, NEARLY ALL OF THEM") once I got going I really rather enjoyed myself. I know it's just singing some songs but it felt GRATE to actually be INVOLVED in something... especially as i hadn't had to go outside and hand out any leaflets to BE involved. The people who HAD done the difficult bits seemed to quite like it too, and afterwards I got given a bottle of WINE to say thanks for coming. I like political gigs, they pay in BOOZE!

posted 16/3/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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