Mike Baird might be able to resist the power of 15,000 Sydneysiders rallying against the city’s strangulation by the lockout laws but will he be able to resist pressure to can them from the almighty force that’s Wu-Tang Clan?
On their first visit to Australia in five years – to a crowd of 4,870 at the Hordern Pavilion – the rap supergroup slammed the restrictions as “crazy”, promising to have the them overturned.
Did they say how? No. Who cares. Just roll with it.
“We heard y’all got some new crazy laws,” RZA told the hyped crowd as they finished up a killer set ft. bangers like C.R.E.A.M and Protect Ya Neck. “We going to to get these laws changed for y’all.”
Wu-Tang were forced to move their after-party from a city venue to Jam Gallery in Bondi Junction because of the lockout laws, which see 1:30am lockouts and 3am last drinks enforced at the affected inner-city precinct.
Promoter Nicholas Greco, whose company Beyond The Valley brought the group out to Australia, told PEDESTRIAN.TV that Wu-Tang couldn’t believe it when they were told the lockouts meant they’d be lawfully unable to enter their own after-party if a) it was held at a venue within the lockout precinct, and b) if they went back to their hotel to freshen up after the 11pm show, and arrived at the venue after 1:30am.
“They love Australia and want to see as much as they can whilst they are down here. We explained to them why we can’t go into certain places and they just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “It’s not the Sydney they remember, they’ve been here previously as a group and as individuals and haven’t had these sorts of lockouts imposed on them before. They thought it was crazy that they would not be able to get into their own show if it was after a certain time.”
He said RZA’s plan was the rile up the people “so that the out of touch people in power have to listen”.
Sydney Labor MP Chris Minns – an anti-lockouts supporter – was admittedly dumbfounded by the support of Wu-Tang, but grateful all the same.
“I don’t normally get my policy advice from a man named Ghostface Killah but on this one he is right. These laws need to be changed,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
The first part of that sentence got us like:
ICYMI, the lockout law debate has reached boiling point in NSW ahead of an independent review of the liquor laws, with hordes of people protesting them at the ‘Keep Sydney Open’ rally last weekend.
Check out our chat with the day’s key-speakers, including The Preatures‘ Isabella Manfredi, Danny Lim, Art vs Science and KSO founder Tyson Koh.
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Ya best protect ya neck, Baird.
Photo: Supplied / David Allegretti.
