We Shall Overcome #WSO2019 takes place over the weekend of October 4/5/6.

At least the main thrust does.

Since the turn of the year activists and organisers have been badging their gigs WSO and raising help for those who need it, whenever and wherever that need is greatest.

It really is that easy.

You can build your own event, or you can badge up something which already exists; if you’re a band on tour you can ask for donations at that weekend’s gigs, or rattle the bucket the whole way round.

It doesn’t even have to be music. We have had poetry and spoken word, history walks, art auctions, lectures, snooker tournaments, boxing nights, battle of the bands, bake-offs……we have done the lot and it was all amazing.

There have been more than 1000 since October 2015, and each has raised help for food banks, soup kitchens, homeless outreach, crisis centres, refugee support, youth projects; basically wherever help is most needed on the streets of your town.

We are NOT a charity. We are a ramshackle alliance of people who aren’t prepared to sit and watch others suffer while we have it in our power to help. We don’t collect donations centrally, everything raised stays where it is and goes straight to the grassroots in the town who raised it.

We Shall Overcome is a metaphorical banner to march under. We help give your local gig a national identity and we help promote it. The scale of our collective efforts gives us all a sense of belonging and a sense of solidarity with like-minded people the four corners of the UK. It gives us a political voice, and it empowers others who may have felt they could not change things and now see they can.

And we can.

We all can.

Those 1000+ gigs have raised food, cash, warm clothing, footwear, tents, toiletries, sleeping bags and sanitary towels to an estimated total of £450,000; and from the first tin of beans to the last 20p piece, it ALL mattered.

It mattered because every last penny says we are not beaten and we will fight til they lose.

JOIN US! BRING A GIG TO THE PARTY!!

Incredible day at Peterloo March for Democracy in Manchester and a massive thank you to the organisers for putting together a blinder to remember the slaughter of Working Class men, women and children on the 16th August 1819.

I was running on empty after last night’s gig in Bradford and two hours kip, but I was soon energised by the trip to pick up Pauline Town and drop off donations from gigs up and down the land. When I arrived at 10.15am Big Sis had already made 50 sarnies for her homeless family. Puts things in perspective don’t it?

Great to march in with Ian Hodson, Sarah Woolley and Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union – BFAWU comrades, together with the amazing folks of Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and the equally brilliant company of Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners. Our procession was so cool that if we hadn’t already been stopping the traffic, we would definitely have stopped the traffic 😂😂😂

Great to arrive in Albert Square in the shadow of Manchester’s incredible City Hall and see so many comrades from up and down the land. Special respect reserved for the Bolton comrades who had marched 12 miles with their banner to be there.

Loved speaking to so many brilliant people and singing from the FBU fire engine, looking out across a sea of smiling faces and banners.

Even the tiny number of fascists who shamelessly came to disrupt an event remembering the slaughter of people whose Class they claim to represent, couldn’t dampen proceedings. We all know if this was 1819 they would have been dressed in the uniform of the Yeomanry murdering for the rich instead of fighting for their own. Same as it ever was.

Right. Must sleep now.

Before I go though, as Pauline and me walked back to the car she stopped to buy a homeless man a sarnie and drink. She was 8 miles from home, way off anyone else’s beaten path, and yet she still knew him by name.

Proud to call her my friend.

Glasgow I f***ing love you.

Phenomenal night at #LoveGlasgowHateRacism with amazing people from all over this wonderful world.

Absolutely blinding sets from Mick Hargan & Andy McBride, The Twistettes and I’ve said before but I’ll say it again, The Wakes playing their hometown is f***ing euphoric!!

Fantastic to see Chip Hamer and Nadia Drews represent Poetry on the Picket Line after nine hours on a train; and Tony Kinsella, soaked to the bone after being caught in a Glasgow squall, loving every second of the night with a great big grin on his face.

Loved meeting the legend that is Richard Jobson too. An absolute gent and a blinding compere.

Big shout out to Glasgow St Pauli comrades for putting the night together and for doing such damn fine work helping Scottish Refugee Council, United Glasgow FC and the wider fight against racism, fascism, bigotry and intolerance.

Big shout out also for Safe Gigs for Women and the work they are doing up and down the land.

…..and to Dave Griffiths for making a nine hour round-trip pass in the blink of an eye.

Right. Recording today, We Shall Overcome Special of The Joe Solo Show tomorrow, and next weekend I’m at Shuttle Shuffle Festival. 17th – 18th August 2019 on Saturday and Peterloo March for Democracy on Sunday.

World won’t change itself ✊❤️👊