by The Zangwills

As a band, we all attend lots of gigs ourselves and so do our friends and family. We became aware of far too many stories about people being groped, harassed and even being spiked at gigs. It’s an issue that is undoubtedly mostly faced by girls, but we know from personal experience that it’s definitely something which anyone can fall victim to. Talking about it, we realised that almost everyone we spoke to could relate to some story or experience of their own.

Sadly, it isn’t a new phenomenon either, we’ve had conversations with people who’ve been in the industry for decades who can say, ‘me too’. Festivals in particular seem to be rife with incidents, even to the extent of reported rapes. That’s not what music is about and we’re sad to even be here writing about it.

Our own Manager’s daughter was at a summer festival when one of the DJ’s at the event stepped up behind her, grabbed the hem of her dress and lifted it around her head, holding it there with her arms trapped so she was left exposed. It’s horrible and disgusting and it’s so upsetting to think that anyone thinks it’s remotely ok to behave that way.

Steps are being taken in the right direction and new laws have been introduced in the UK regarding the practice of, ‘upskirting’, where phone cameras are used to take images, as the name suggests - up skirts. As well as the serious incidents which the law has the capacity to deal with, there are the many others such as breasts, bottoms and crotches being grabbed which often go unreported but cause a great deal of distress and a sense of violation. No one should be subjected to that on a night out.

Thankfully, what IS changing is awareness surrounding the issue and we felt strongly that we, both as a band and as individuals, wanted to do something to drive the message home. The strength of our voice is through our music and so the most obvious way we felt we could tackle it was with a song. We wrote the initial outline for Judas on the Dancefloor sitting in Adam’s car in a supermarket carpark, recording the original ideas on a phone using GarageBand before developing it further at rehearsals and in the studio. Usually, we allow our songs to evolve by performing them as part of our live set but with Judas, we tackled it differently. The whole song was written and recorded before we played it live for the first time, we saved it for the encore at our sold-out Manchester Deaf Institute date (6th September 2019).

We are super keen that our own shows are considered as being a safe space for all and asked the organisation, Girls Against to have a presence at the September date. They were represented by Tom on the night and he jumped on our merch stand, giving out leaflets along with button badges and bottle stoppers (designed to prevent drinks being spiked). We went on to sell out Manchester Academy 3 in February 2020 and Tom was with us again. He was able to talk to people both about their own experiences and to those who wanted to discuss the wider issue.

Between our two Manchester dates, we also played Rivfest in Warrington, the festival supporting the charity set up in memory of Viola Beach. This was attended by Safe Gigs for Women, a different group but very much delivering the same message. One of the things we’ve taken away from talking to Girls Against and Safe Gigs for Women is that if you witness something dodgy, having the confidence to ask the person if they’re ok can make a big difference to the situation and the outcome. That’s how raising awareness works, we can all be vigilant and look out for each other.

We are optimistic that these dirty corners of the dark, sweaty venues so many of us love spending time in are having light shone into them and hope that the people lurking there quickly realise that they can’t get away with it anymore because we, the gig going public, bands, management, promoters, venue owners, security and staff – we’re onto them.

Jake, Sam, Adam, Ed

http://girlsagainst.org.uk/

https://sgfw.org.uk/