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Video: Crowds gathered to sing Toto’s Africa at the Monument last night

But the police threatened arrest, oops


The famed ‘Singing Africa by Toto at Grey’s Monument’ event actually went ahead last night, despite the original event being cancelled.

A large crowd gathered in the centre of Newcastle at 7pm to sing the classic song. Although it wasn’t quite the crowd of 5,000 who said they were attending on the Faceboook event, there was still a decent turnout.

Equipped with large speakers, the organisers blasted the tune out with the people of Newcastle singing along to the chorus at the top of their voices, with even a man on the trumpet featuring.

However after the first rendition, the police interfered and threatened to arrest those in charge if they played it again.

The original event had huge interest on Facebook, but Chris Atkins, the organiser, was forced to cancel. But a new event was created titled, ‘Singing Africa by Toto- We will continue, no matter what’, interesting a further 3,000 people.

Image may contain: Parade, Crowd, Human, Person, PeopleThe true Toto fans were out in force and risked it, despite the warning of police involvement on the cold Newcastle night. With the police vans and officers surrounding Monument they were brave to go on, but persevered and filled the city with Africa.

The crowds could not be stopped after just one song and they continued by singing Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, although this was less impressive due to confusion over lyrics and a lack of backing track.

In one final attempt to start a sing along, people began to sing All Star by Smash Mouth, by which time people had started to lose enthusiasm and the crowds quickly dispersed.