March Of Progress // Canela Party 2019 // LIVE // Malaga, Spain

Remember live music? This video was shot last year at one of our favourite festivals - Canela Party in Malaga, Spain. We asked Joe from IDLES what he thinks about moving forward, announcing shows again and what progress means in the current sociopolitical landscape. In an increasingly divisive society, music & art serves as the cultural glue that keeps us from falling apart. It’s more important than ever to listen, to share stories, truths, experiences and to unite for the greater good. We want to thank the people working tirelessly to save our venues and festivals so we all have spaces and places to come back together again. We ask our friends and fans to stay safe and keep pushing forward, let’s all end up on the other side. We can’t wait to share a stage with IDLES again, as well the rest of the killer lineup at Canela 2021. Please read on and let us know what you think & thanks Joe 😘


MARCH OF PROGRESS
“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalized, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community,”

Those were the words of Nye Bevin, a Welsh Labour politician who conceived the National Health Service in Britain and stood behind the premise that all citizens deserve healthcare and an equal starting block when it comes to welfare. A novel idea in these strange and uncertain times. What is being called “ a leveller “ by some , Covid 19 is in no way putting us “all in the same boat” or if it is then there are very different parts of which the boat to inhabit. The poor are the poorest they’ve been in decades and the rich are a fuck ton richer,

Also, the last strains of any democratic socialist economic balancing has been dissipated by the Neo - liberal leaders of new, the rich are winning and the poor are dying.

Rewind to Preoccupations pounding and valorous song ‘March Of Progress’; a call to arms that pushes through you as a participant in your dizzying purpose. It collects up the white noise of modern chaos and ploughs at the pedestrian with delirious glee and a fistful of menace. The sound of angel dust dances over speed and gives us that thing we need: gumption.

It, and Preoccupations performance of it, is a song that gives me the gumption to march, to believe in my own language. The reason art and music is so feared by the 1% is that songs like this gives us the connection of being, beyond race, class and borders, these songs allow us to remind ourselves that we are all connected and are part of something much bigger than ourselves. Art is a tool because it inspires and empowers us all equally and encourages creative and individual thinking. Creative thinking is problem solving: to try and create a fluid pathway from who you are to the rest of the world without relying on the men upstairs that often shame us back into our small boxes.

In these times of isolation, its the restriction of space and physical freedom that makes songs like March Of Progress so important in remembering that you only need your ideas to be free and your expression and open mind to stay connected to the world. We can all march together with gumption in the confines of our homes, free to be and think for ourselves and free from restraint of reliance on the pigs.

Fast forward to now and it may seem bleak and for some this will be the worst moment of their life but we can only stand still for so long in our isolation before we feel the urge of that connection to the world again, to understand that we are all, in some ways, connected in the essence of what it is to be human; to feel and to think freely and creatively as individual parts of one big fuck off march forward towards a better time where empathy is a driving force behind progress, where we all have healthcare and an equal opportunity to live side by side; not the same but human.


CREDITS: Footage Adrián Nieto Maesso y 2041/ Fernando A. Cienfuegos. Recorded live at Canela Party 2019.