Good Rid-Dance

On election night a few of us got together and sorted a generator, projector and screen, tv top box, decks and a soundsystem. There was talk of doing a Reclaim The Streets party when the result came through but the safety logistics of that proved to be too overwhelming. (Both from the side of drunk party people on the street at night and from the cops.)
So from that the Good-Rid Dance was born. All up it cost about a hundred bucks. Most of that was phone calls and photocopying some flyers. I did have an element of fear that was way out of proportion to what was actually going to happen (it's amazing what a lack of sleep will do to your brain).
From 7pm we kicked the music off and ended up with about 500 people gathering in the square and witnessing the end of the Howard era/error together in the heart of our neighbourhood. People got dressed up and danced, drank talked and caught up with mates as they hatched plans for the evening. There were many parties on, not least of them Chanel Number 5, the 5th in the series of the legendary 'Channel' parties, which began in the abandoned ABC studios at Gore Hill over a year ago.
Chanel descended into a 'three hour brawl' (thanks again to the Telegraph for such a bullshit quote) and my evening ended with washing my friends eyes out because they got sprayed with pepperspray by the cops. La bullshite. Oh, my evening didn't really end by the way, I took refuge in a friends warehouse and partied until 8am, repression be damned. For once we actually had a good reason to have a big fucking party. Good Riddance!