It’s popping but there’s no corn

When I first heard of this new Pop Up concept, the first image to jump into my mind was a children’s books where origami illustrations burst out of the page. What’s not to love about pop up? It’s a story book, only more exciting.

Lately Pop Up has become a gimmick in the hands of salespeople. Vintage shops, gourmet restaurants, art-house cinema, they’re all popping up from Washington to Wellington, San Francisco to Sydney. The name sure is catchy, but is it any thing more than just a new way to sell stuff, to reach out to consumers without having to rent a shop front?

Perhaps. But this is where inner west proved once again that is does things differently. Opening the Fringe Festival last Friday night, the Newtown Pop Up Festival was without a doubt one of the most underground events on the calender.

Even the brigades of police and their pet sniffer dogs that were roaming the streets that night seemed surprised to come across what looked like an impromptu gathering of a marching band, ballerinas, clowns, dolls, dinosaurs and a giant green rabbit dancing and mingling.

But those in tune to the underground airwaves knew to rendez-vous in the park by the old cemetary in Newtown at 6.30pm last Friday night.

Token Imagination’s guerilla poet MC Jess Cook set the scene with a poem, a tribute to the Newtown underground, then lead a merry band of revellers through the twilight backstreets of the susburb.

First stop, host Chris Lego reminisced on the old days, not so many years ago, when the young, the artists, the students and the self-employed bohemians could still afford to rent a share house on these once grimey streets, before the stench of gentrification took over.

The parade twisted and turned through the byways of our favourite suburb. Any Pop Up Party deserving of the name has to refer to the poppiest of pops, that is, of course, the one and only, Iggy Pop. So out popped the champagne corks to snatches of tunes reminding of us our lust for life.

On Wilson Street, a lone guitarist played from his balcony a tribute to the rock band Faker.

After a smorgasbord of blink-and-you-miss, never to be repeated performances, that for a few minutes reclaimed the laneways for the dreamers, a reminder that the People’s Republic of Newtown lives, the gathering landed in Ersksineville’s Green Bans Park.

Norrie mAy Welby grabbed everyone’s attention to give a speech on the radical history of the suburb, including the people’s power that resisted the eviction of a working class family at 143 Union Street, in the aftermath of the depression.

“Imagine the noise that we’re making right now and compare that with the five or six thousand people fighting the police to stop an eviction,” Norrie said.

“The police had rocks thrown at them after the eviction turned bloody; this is part of the long history of Newtown.”

Meanwhile sniffer dogs and cops edged closer.

“Right here, right now, we are a part of starting something else,” Norrie said.

“Community spirit goes a long way.”

Chris Lego summed it up, “Theres no set formula, but for a few hours we change the landscape of the street with sheer numbers and a sense of anticipation.

“Today there’s at least 300 people who will remember the Wilson St carpark for the ‘five minute Iggy Pop Party.”