One month on from the Dark Ages

Was it the beginning of the Dark Ages last month?  Or the end?  Or perhaps the event WAS the Dark Ages and we made it through.  The JAMs have most certainly given me food for thought since Liverpool.

I spent the first week afterwards in a stunned mental fog.  I was completely obsessed to the point that I couldn't even think about trying to introduce myself to the new Queens of the Stone Age album, which had come out on the Friday of the event, the day of the Rites of Mu , the Great Pull North and the Graduation Ball.  It took me exactly one week to get to the point where I could find the space in my brain to listen to it.  It's a damn good album, they're my most favourite ever band in the world, so the feeling of not being able to give it a chance immediately was an unsettling one.  But I felt like I'd experienced something truly profound, and I definitely needed lots of processing time to work it all out.

During the Great Pull North, I was gleefully scattering ragwort across beautifully kept, clean roads and pavements as we passed the Albert Docks and the Three Graces buildings.  I recalled as I scattered, Bill's idea behind Ragwort Day.   He wanted to celebrate degeneration, that the humble ragwort could survive and thrive where degeneration had ruined the man made and allowed nature to return.  So as I scattered, I imagined the ragwort seeds finding cracks in the pavement and the roads, germinating and appearing where the perfectionists would not want it.  Discord in action, creating chaos where the Illuminati try to impose order.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the JAMs book 2023 and it inspired me to finally grab a copy of the Illuminati Trilogy, to find out more about where the JAMs get their inspiration, and steal their best ideas.  I've just finished the first book of the Trilogy, and yep, the similarities are hilariously obvious.  But the JAMs are so much more than just idea thieves, they steal the ideas and run with them, with the most amazing results, as they proved during the Dark Ages event.

I still feel like I have experienced something deeply special, and indeed, it was a one off, never to be repeated event which I was utterly privileged to be part of.  The £100 ticket price was nothing to what I gained in return, I really can't see how they could have possibly turned a profit at that price, and they certainly didn't sell all of the merchandise they had produced.  Still, it could never be viewed as a failure, and I look forward to the inaugural Toxteth Day of the Dead, which I hope to attend next year.

I love the JAMs more than ever.