Notting Hill Carnival

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Bank holiday weekend!!!!

Every year London has the Notting Hill Carnival on this weekend. It all started back in the 60's when a half Russian, half Cherokee lady called Ronnie Lazlet organised a childrens carnival, getting a bunch of West Indian guys to play the steel pan. These guys started the day playing a set at a pub, then when they went to the carnival they told the crowd what they were doing. Everyone went along with them. They just decided to head up the street playing and people started coming out of the woodwork, singing and dancing and joining in!

This was the start of carnival and it just grew every year after that. It was to start with a celebration of West Indian / Carribian culture, but over the years the Jamacains joined in and then in the 90's the radio stations got in behind it bringing in big name bands and making carnival huge! Carnival weekend now turns over about £93 million in 2 days!
Basically put, it now entails about 40 or so "Soundsystems", (different stage areas with all sorts of different music at each) spread across 2 or 3 suburbs of London. Along the way, they have a parade route, where trucks with steel bands and dancers travel along spreading the vibe. Theres stalls and BBQs everywhere, most of the shops shut up 4 the weekend and everybody comes out of the woodwork to party! Anyway, I went along with Monkey, Falex, Tease and a few others. We got there about 1pm and it was mostly being set up. The guys recommended staying up around the Sancho Panza stage and the Norman Jay Goodtimes Soundsystem, which were about 150m apart seperated by a few streets. As the day progressed, people just kept flooding in from all over. It was awesome, the music was wicked and so damn loud!. By about 3pm, it was a major effort to get from one stage to the other, with it being wall to wall people on all the streets! Everyone. Little kids, guys in suits, girls in bikinis, every race and age was covered.

We had decided we were going up to Underdog again, (being thats what we do on Sundays) so we left abou 5pm. We walked along the path of the parade, as the club was basically at the begining of the root and we were at the end. Wasnt prepared though for the people! We walked for about 3/4 of an hour, the trucks were still running, people all over them, singing, dancing, beating drums and pans. Everybody was smiling, (total novelty for London), people dancing in the streets and all the streets were totally chokka for the full length of our walk. Got to the top of a hill at one point and looked back down the equivilant of Queen St, but wider and it was a mass of bodies, wicked! Got to the club, and had another great night. Go the Carnival!

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