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People Say The Nicest Things

June 19, 2014
A Band Anyone Can Join, Hope and Social Blog, Make Art, shows, TIP, Tour

The dust has settled on The Tour Of Infinite Possibility: Weekend #1. As Simon so rightly puts it, it’s been an “incredible, exhilarating and rewarding” project. So much happened over those two days, we played six shows, with hundreds of new band members joining us on stage. All in just under 36 hours. It’s difficult to even begin to separate it all out.

To misquote A Hard Day’s Night, I was in a van, and a car park, on a stage, in a van, at a school playground, on a stage, in a van, in a car-park, on a stage, in bed, in a van, in a town square, on stage, in a van, in a city square, on a stage, in a van, in a town gardens, on a stage, in a pub, in a van, and in a bed.

But what do I remember?

I remember rain and sun, and I remember beauuuuuutiful drives through Yorkshire…

Beauuuutiful Yorkshire

… and I remember gigs, and songs, and setting up and packing down. I remember ukuleles, choirs, brass bands, school children, and scouts… and dozens of phones and cameras pointing stageward; capturing loved ones’ performances.

I remember working with an amazing team doing their jobs brilliantly. Mostly though, I remember seeing hundreds of smiling faces on-stage, and out in the audience. Thanks to the good people of Yorkshire, the weekend of the 7th and 8th of June 2014 will be burned into our memories forever.

This weekend (21st and 22nd June 2014) we’ll embark upon what we hope will be the glorious 2nd TIP weekend (or in true Tour de France stylee, “Stage 2”). (UPDATE: New and limited FREE tickets available here!), and if you’re unsure exactly what TIP is, or need to whet your whistle for the coming weekend, then this is well worth a looksie…

Even though the lovely Sodium chaps are busy squirreling away on the visuals for our Grand Depart: Opening Ceremony date, but as busy as they are right now, they’ve still managed to squeeze this video of the Harrogate TIP show out for our delectation. It’s a lovely thing showing tons of smiling faces through the rain. Sodium, thanks as always guys. Happy faces all round.

… but this isn’t about what we remember…

… this is a blog-post about other people’s memories of the weekend, the project, of us, and the tour. We’re firm believers that bands yawping on about how awesome their album/gigs/projects are is far less interesting than what people tell their mates. So here’s a selection of writings about TIP.

To the people who have chosen to write, tweet and email us with amazing tales, pics and videos about their TIP experience, we salute you, and namecheck you below. So, here we go…

Things people say about The Tour Of Infinite Possibility:

– Team TIP’s Rachel Auty blogged over here on The Culture Vulture:
A proper blow-by blow account from the perspective of a Team TIPster, and a performer. – “all I recall is smiles and laughter everywhere”

– The tale of TIP from a Spa Town Roller Girl
The amazing Lucy Barrow exclaims..:
“…what on earth have you got us in to?”” > “As we all assembled on stage and I looked around at the glowing faces around me…”.

– “In Which I Find My Voice” – Kelly of Northern Songbirds:
Kelly’s written beautifully about her journey from child singer to non-singer, to proud singer. Some words are too beautiful. Thanks Kelly!

“When I was a little girl I loved to sing… Sadly, my dreams of singing on stage never panned out. I left singing far behind when I hit high school & never looked back…

(for the Harrogate TIP show) there were roller girls & ukeleles & other choirs & workshops & drinks & laughs & mistakes & smiles & friendships and… magic. There was magic. Last night’s performance was amazing, incredible.

Singing. With an amazing band. In front of a spectacular audience. Surrounded by my closest friends & choir-mates. What more is there? After over twenty years, I’ve found my (singing) voice again. And it feels pretty incredible.”

Aaaand a Spa Town Roller Girls blogpost…
… in which Hope and Social are subjected to terrifying feats of physical prowess – “Excited?” I said, “TERRIFIED!” was the response.

Kelly blogged over on the Northern Songbirds site again:
… about how it made her feel, and about magic.
“We were definitely all a part of something special… It was more than incredible. It was magical.”

– and there’s the Head-teacher who let us know that:
“One of my seven year olds wrote a report of the day. The bit that made us giggle was the following…
“then we all began to ring our bells for the song Pigeons Fart Too High” …
… Out of the mouths of babes.”

– Then there are the tweets. Tweets of joy…

The twitter search for the #HStip hashtag search alone extends to 2000 tweets at time of writing and the facebook comments are too numerous to even count, so at the bottom of this blog-post there are a few [actually, there are loads. I just couldn’t whittle it down to a few) select tweets from people who’ve been involved…

… but first!

There’s still time to Be Part Of It…

There are more lovely comments over on Si’s blog post here, not to mention the awesome 10 year old boy who came up to us in Masham after the show to say “I must tell you something, and I’ve already mentioned this to one of your colleagues. That was the BEST musical experience of my life” – (he’s the one in the Top hat in the pics above. Awesome, personality-full lad). Meanwhile, the H&S and HSTIP facebook pages are awash with the words of people who’ve been involved or came to the shows, but if you’ve come to play out with us, or are coming this weekend, we’d love to hear from you.

If you know of anywhere anyone’s written about TIP that we may not know of, do let us know. And please, if you’ve anything to say about TIP; if you’ve enjoyed it, taken part (or know anyone who has) or watched from afar we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a tweet or tag a tweet with #hstip and we’ll get it (sorry for not replying to every tweet. We do try, but in busy times we sometimes fail to reply to ’em all). Or if you’re feeling so inclined add in your thoughts to the comments below, or write a blog or post a photo… and by all means share with your friends.

We sincerely hope to see you this weekend. Last weekend was momentous, and we want to go out in style on this one.

Some new [FREE!] tickets have just been released so head on over to hopeandsocial.com/tip/tickets and reserve your place.

See you there,

Love
Rich
H&S

….. and now…

Selected tweets

– Tweets about the band, about earworms, rehearsals, TIP, and the shows:

– Pre-Show tweets:

– Tweets of how being part of this makes people feel:

– Tweets about broken stuff… and people:


– Tweets from The TIP Team:

– Tweets of dogs in band T-Shirts:

– Tweets from the crowds:

Tweets about the bike-powered stage

and even…

– Tweets From The Stage:

And if it’s not too presumptuous…

… here’s two beautiful shots from the final gig of weekend one by our friends Sodium.

Lovely.

1 Comment

Join the discussion and tell us your opinion.

Suzanne
June 22, 2014 at 5:42 pm

Thanks a million for being so generous, and patient, and supportive to complete musical amateurs like me, who never would have imagined singing along ( and bell ringing!) on stage with such talented and fun people like you. It was a fantastic experience. Thank you all very very much.