Billy Bragg – South Bank

Spent a great sunny Saturday afternoon down at South Bank with my buddy Ross. It was the grand opening of the Royal Festival Hall (which has been completely refurbished) and featured many activities and performers in and around the Hall all weekend.
Billy Bragg had organised something called The Big Busk-Off for the evening (with buskers encouraged to bring their guitars for a mass play along that had disaster written all over it). To get everyone in the mood – he also performed a 45 minute set of “buskers standards” which was incredibly enjoyable.
Playing mostly acoustic guitar, and accompanied by a second guitarist and banjo – they played some nice low-key versions of “Long Black Veil”, “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” “The Weight”, “I Can’t Help Falling In Love”, “Irene Goodnight”, and Bragg’s own “The Myth Of Trust”. He even got his mum up (much to her chagrin) for an impromptu dance during “Underneath The Arches”.
Highlight for me was the incredibly appropriate “Waterloo Sunset” – lying in the sun right next to the “dirty old river” and by the shadow of the “millions of people swarming like flies round waterloo underground”.

thanks to the dude from Flickr for the photo!