Seize the Day bring songs of change to Coledale RSL
“No one writes protest songs anymore?” Have you ever heard someone say that? There are many well-known protest anthems from the vibrant social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and on Thursday, February 22, two musicians from UK band Seize the...
This article has been updated with photos of the benefit gig, thanks to Ironbark Photography.
“No one writes protest songs anymore?” Have you ever heard someone say that?
There are many well-known protest anthems from the vibrant social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and on Thursday, February 22, two musicians from UK band Seize the Day will generously share their contemporary folk songs for people and the planet at the Coledale RSL in a benefit gig for the Protect Our Water Alliance (POWA).
Come along and enjoy the songs of meaning and change, before the musicians make their return low-carbon long-distance trip by land and sea to play at the Glastonbury Festival. This gig at the community-run Coledale RSL will be far more intimate than mingling with 200,000 festival goers in a muddy field in Somerset!
Shannon and Theo of the award-winning folk band are keen environmental and peace campaigners who stopped flying in 2002 because of emissions causing climate change.
Their journey by train, ferry and bus to Australia with their 19-year-old daughter was widely covered in national media in December, when they arrived in time to attend a family wedding in the Blue Mountains. They travelled across Europe and through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia before using ferries to navigate Indonesia and arrive in East Timor.
Singer Shannon said, “This will be our last concert in Australia before we begin our long journey over land and sea back to Britain. We’ve felt so welcomed here and so over-awed by the beautiful nature of this land.
"It’s a real privilege for us to have a chance to give something back by supporting some of the people defending it.”
For me, who met Theo while I was living and working in Wales in 2007, it’s a thrill to have them perform in my hometown.
I met Theo at the Aberthaw coal-fired power station where we were protesting against the impact of acid rain and greenhouse gas pollution. That coal-fired power station has since closed, along with all but one of the UK’s coal-fired power stations. 15GW onshore and 15GW offshore of wind power capacity has replaced it, feeding into the UK grid, cutting atmospheric carbon and nitrogen oxide pollution emissions and generating green jobs.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing for the wind power industry in the United Kingdom. Seize the Day’s song Boys on the Balcony is about a workers’ occupation of a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight in 2009. Forced to close due to lack of demand, it re-opened just two years later. This factory now employs 650 people, has produced 1000 turbine blades for the Northern Europe market and has further plans to expand. The song celebrates the workers’ determination to fight for “work in a world where the turbines spin, here is a fight we all must win”.
As Wollongong waits to see if the offshore wind area progresses to the stage of a zoning declaration, to shape design constraints and enable further site assessment, the words of the Seize the Day song rallies community support: “This is our families’ future too. It's our power – nationalise it. Better let the workers organise it!”
So come to the Coledale RSL for 7pm on Thursday – connect with Earth-loving people, grab a woodfired pizza from Rosso Pepe Catering who are doing a kitchen takeover or order a drink from the volunteers behind the bar, including the slushy machine for young and old ($5 non alcoholic, $12 alcoholic).
Tickets via Humanitix.
Writer Cath Blakey is a Greens Wollongong City Councillor for Ward 2.
