Not just a benefit gig a great gig.

national | arts and media | opinion/analysis

Thursday November 13, 2003 19:39

by Paul Cummins

chewy at redbrick dot dcu dot ie

Went along to the Ploughshares Support gig in Mother Redcaps last week it had great musicians at it. Didn't get much info on the progress of the trial bar there's a date been set for some time in February? I think.

guess who

When you get involved in all this sorta stuff you begin to feel obliged to go to various benefit gigs and its a bit unsatisfactory perhaps if you've been directly involved in the issue and you go to a gig thats empty but those involved turn up who have already put in a huge amount of their time for this cause and then they have to pay 5e or 10e for this too, but the Ploughshare gigs are great I've gone out of my way to go to a few of them now because I believe they should get huge support for what they did and their nights are nice. As usual there a selection of traditional music and guitars players etc.There was also a great Bluegrass band complete with high pitched harmonies and washing boards and spoon instruments. I'd never seen a live Blugrass band before I think they were appropriately called Prison Love and they're worth going to see anythime. Fun. I think with benefit gigs you can often get an interesting mix of people and music but you do have to make the event worth going to as event in itself.

At the ISF recently people from the Workers Beer Company came over from England, they help ngo's and unions fundraise by leasing a bar for festivals where the org gets its volunteers to staff the bar and keep the profits. Its great way to fundraise, can't go wrong with beer at a festival. They also have a quite succesful pub in Enlgand too. They came over to look for people in Ireland to do the same at festivals here next summer. Last year they were involved in the Leftfield at Glastonbury which has grown to an important part of the Glastonbury experience with debates and stall and top muscians and speakers playing there. In England Oxfam has provided volunteer stewarding at their festivals and Oxfam have recieved a high profile in return for their causes,(similarily Oxfam co-sponsored the Dun Laoghaire festival here which was a great success). They also worked with an ethical threads tshirt company which sold out its stock at the festival.

So it might be ooh lets be down with the kids to get involved in politics but heh why not its probably a much more enjoyable way of doing it.

A few months Audioslave got in contact with Indymedia too ask for any groups interested in setting up info stalls at their gig at the Point, I wrote a short report on how Gluaiseacht and the IAWM did so with a good response from the concerts go-ers. Inspired by that someone tried to get a stall for Manu Chau but couldn't get in touch with the right people. It all depends on who the bands, the manager, the venue etc. and again getting touch with the right people but I think it would be worth doing at large gigs and more suitably at festivals. Also its probably a missed oppurtunity not to have info stalls in the foyeurs when well known speakers come to Ireland too and other political/cultural events.

Perhaps theres enough interest for indymedia to do this ourselves for the moment at gigs...?

So if anyones interested check their website out at http://www.workersbeer.co.uk or me chewy@redbrick.dcu.ie and Ill put you touch with a few people I think might be interested in doing it over here.

Presidential pardon number 1