The King Blues: How to play a protest

With police restricting the public's right to march, my band took our sound sytem down to the G20 protest to make people feel like they could dance on the streets again

The King Blues at the G20 protest (Itch is on the left in the red hoodie)
Protest is a democratic right. Yet at last week's G20 protests – which I attended with my band the King Blues – the police made it as difficult as possible to exercise that right. Their intimidation tactics included using FIT photographers to capture images of protesters, showing up in riot gear and penning everyone in for hours without letting people go to the toilet or have water.
In the face of this clampdown on democracy, we wanted people to feel like they could dance on the streets again. That's why we took the King Blues sound system – a PA system on a tiny float wheeled by a rickshaw – down to the Saturday protest. The sound system was inspired by Emma Goldman's quote, "If I can't dance, it's not my revolution", and it has seen a fair bit of action in its time.
We weren't officially invited to play by any organisers. We just decided it's as much our march as anyone else's and set up our own space. It's not always easy playing at a protest – the mics cut out and the wind can make it sound haunted. Plus, walking while playing for so long means that an endless amount of things can go wrong. Midway through a speech about how the government cannot silence us anymore, my microphone cut out!
We cycled into the march playing the Dead Kennedys' Holiday in Cambodia at full blast to let people know where the sound was. They quickly gathered around and we set up our instruments – before a police officer threatened us that if we didn't move, he'd move us. Finally we were off and the reaction was amazing. Masses of people dancing around shouting, "The streets are ours!". It truly warmed the heart. We played Don't Let the Bastards Win while walking past the Ritz and Blood On My Hands outside Parliament. It all seemed scarily fitting.