2006: A Funk Odyssey

Now THAT was a brilliant, brilliant evening.

Last night, in case you haven't been keeping up, was the Supa-Fi event in York City Screen, featuring the excellent Funkate. Now, when we've mentioned them before, we've generally said "the excellent" because we'd seen them play for the odd few minutes and enjoyed it. But really, I can now say it with full vigour and emhasis, they really were excellent. The photo below, sent from my mobile, sadly doesn't really capture it. That event was the best £4 I've spent in a long time, and I highly recommend their next gig on November 18th.

But back to the cause. The reason our connection with Funkate emerged was that they offered us a signed T-shirt and CD to add to the prize pot, as well as the chance to come along and promote what we were doing. As more emails were exchanged, it emerged that the plan was that they'd give me the microphone at some point to explain it to the audience. But we never imagined it would happen the way it did.

It's pretty hard to describe, and probably even harder to imagine, but let me try: an 8-piece funk band, playing a funked-up version of Richard Strauss's Also Spracht Zarathustra (known variously as Thus Spake Zarathustra, the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, or "that space one". You know the one - duuuuuurrrr duuuuuuurrrr duuuuuuurrrr...... DUR DUUUURRRR). Not only that, but I was given specific instructions to raise or lower their volume according to my whim, for extra dramatic effect, by raising or lowering my hands. The overall majesty of this somewhat took over my capacity for words, resulting in my speaking mostly in phrases like "People of York..." and "Fellow citizens, the time has come to lay down your anger..." and even "Join with us today...". Obviously, there were appropriate pauses for the most dramatic parts of the music. Sadly, I really can't remember exactly what was said, but it went on in that vein for quite some time and evoked a lot of spontaneous applause.

If you've never made a proclamation of peace, on a stage, accompanied by a funk band playing space music, I highly recommend it. I can't say it had been number one on my list of life ambitions, but in retrospect I do now see that my whole life had been building up to that moment.

Afterwards we met a bloke called Ash, who shook me enthusiastically by the hand, saying "That was brilliant! I was sitting there watching with my mate, and I said to him, 'Now this is entertainment.' Excellent - well done". When I asked him to sign the pledge, he asked what it was. "To be honest," he said, "I was talking to my mate on and off - I didn't really catch it all."

Without having a clue what I was talking about, he still thought it was brilliant entertainment. Whether that says something about our proclamation, about Funkate or about him, I've no idea. But probably the latter two.