Dancing to the Dublin Gospel Choir at Electric Picnic

• September 7, 2010
• 5 Comments
• life, music

This was the highlight of my summer. The Sunday morning of Electric Picnic, myself and three of the guys I was performing with as part of Werk at thisispopbaby headed off to get coffee and food. The Dublin Gospel Choir were on stage in the main arena, singing wonderful music. We sat and finished our food and coffee and enjoyed the music. Then they started a Stevie Wonder medley, which got us up to dance. During the course of the medley, myself and Tom started doing bits of one of the routines we were doing later that night, and the other two guys joined in.

Some girls came over to us after those songs and asked if they could dance along with us, as we “looked like a lot of craic”, and we’re never ones to refuse to dance. So we all started dancing together calling out simples moves to each other. Over the course of the next few songs, more and more people behind and beside us started to follow along too, and people came up from the crowd ahead of us to dance behind us too. People took photos, smiled, and watched. Some people we dragged up to join us too and at some point we looked around to see a crowd of people all following our moves behind us.

When the set finished, we held Tom (who was doing most of the leading dance-wise) up on our shoulders as the dancers behind us applauded us and the Gospel choir both. So many people came over to say thank you, and saying it was the best moment of the festival for them, but we were just happy to dance along to the fantastic music and thrilled when other people saw fit to follow what we were doing and dance along with us.

It was a beautiful afternoon. I’ve only discovered two youtube videos of it so far, but you’d never know, more might surface.

Firstly, a short one, where you can see myself, Chris and Tom in front, and Stephen in the red vest behind us.

Secondly, a video shot from the side, showing more of the people who were dancing along behind us.

edit: here’s a 3rd video, this time from the front, and you can clearly see myself and the other three guys who started it all:

edit again: here’s a 4th video, also from the front and a bit short too.

The Dublin Gospel Choir mentioned it on their facebook page:

Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us at Electric Picnic yesterday. Great day and LOVED the flash mob! If you have any pix or videos send them on, we’d love to see them!!!

Flash Mob…. it’s not often that you get to watch a show from the stage but this made our day!! Think poor Kerry-Anne nearly forgot the words when she saw them!! It’s what the Picnic is all about!!! Thanks guys!

The whole weekend was fantastic, and the rain on Sunday/Monday didn’t marr it at all, just made things a little more challenging. I had another random beautiful moment where I was having some chips between catching UNKLE and Fever Ray, and sat down at one of the upright pianos in the wood sculpture areas near the electric arena. Of course it was delightfully out of tune and honky tonk, so I started playing some Ray Charles and Tom Waits covers on it, and ended up playing in the rain to a few people who were crossing the area to catch The National or Foals. But it was wet, and when my chips were gone, I headed off to catch Fever Ray instead, but it was rather lovely too. I’m sure those pianos suffered through a lot of “Chopsticks” and the like, so a bit of jazzier stuff was a nice respite I imagine.