Do you remember the Rainbow Centre?
Do you remember the London Rainbow Centre
Early 90’s 420 Kentish Town Road
It was a church but we were pagan ravers
Eco-mental pixies come to save the world
Did you go to a rave there once on a full moon
Sit in a circle, paint your face or chant some Om?
Did you practice what you preach up on the One Love
Did you take it down the Tube and into Babylon?
chorus:
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ALL THE YOGHURT WEAVERS?
I HOPE THEY WOVE A WEB SO FINE
TO HOLD ALL THE MADNESS
‘COS SOMEONE NEEDS TO
RAINBOW TRIBE ARE HERE ON TIME
Did you meet any of the Dongas Tribe there
Resting up from protesting Twyford or Solsbury Hill?
Where machines were cutting up the scenery
Which the D.O.T’s stinking tarmac lanes now fill
Did you wear a crochet top? (like me)
Did you make a bender in the pews?
Did you pop up Hampstead Heath for a breather?
Or perhaps drop by for to pop some pills?
It was perfect anarchy at the Rainbow Centre
Activists and children doing it themselves
Shakers and makers at the Rainbow Centre
Teched-up, loved-up mainframe-wired
Environmental Elves
chorus:
I spent a lovely day and night there, slept between the pews – told it was all right for one night. There was a moonbow – a great circular rainbow around the full moon – and dancing and chanting, and someone did a fantastic techno set after that.
I had some nice chats. In the cafe across the road, I played a couple of blues progressions on a slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitar, and someone came up to me to shake me hand and earnestly point out that they might never meet me again. That is lovely.
Thinking of those times whips up a wild nostalgia. And sadness too. I wasn’t even that involved, didn’t so much, but thinking of Dongas, Wish, Matt, lying on top of Solsbury Hill in the deep lamp-lit night – there was something happening then.