Back Again
Just came back from London. Damn, my timing was just about perfect. The riots started ON THE VERY DAY I ARRIVED and now they seem to have slowed down. I didn't actually even know anything was going on before my mom phoned me on monday.
I had just been to see Morrissey at the Brixton Academy the last night and apparenly there had been some trouble in Brixton that day. I didn't even see anything out of the ordinary, just a lot of police around that I though were there for crowd control because of the show.
The next few nights you could hardly sleep for the sirens and helicopters. Fortunately our hostel was at a relatively safe place, only a few broken windows on the streets nearby. It was kind of scary though. Shops closed early and the police were everywhere. Really weird reading the news online with the pictures of burning buildings and thinking, that's where I am.
All in all, I got home safely and my trip was hardly effected but a lot of people will be suffering from the consequences of these riots for a long time. I hope this at least brings light on some important stuff like youth projects and the growing financial inequality but it's very possible the government will just see it as an opportunity to put more cameras on the streets and justify more internet control and censorship.
We'll see.
Here's a great site dedicated to the riot cleaup effort and helping people who lost their apartments or stores.
Morrissey was incredible. The man has some stage precence. You know when you get that shivery feeling when something really awesome happens? It was like that.
When he started singing 'It's Over' with practically everyone joining in was fucking magical
and there was the super dramatic version of Meat Is Murder that they played with footage of factory farms on the background that was brilliant. There was also PETA members giving out flyers at the entrance. And there was one new song. I think it was called Art Hounds and Morrissey was so selfconcious about people liking it.
And at the last song, he took his shirt off and threw it into the crowd.
I will love that man forever. FOREVER.