Strumming his acoustic steel-string guitar on a busy street in east London, 27-year-old Australian singer-songwriter Dan Tredget is a man on a mission.
Tredget, originally from Perth, is aiming to become the first person to busk at every London Underground station.
With 272 stops on the network, it is a daunting task.
Photo: AFP
“It’s pretty overwhelming when I look at the map sometimes, seeing how many stations I’ve got left to complete, but it’s also quite uplifting to know that I’m pretty close to the halfway mark,” he told reporters shortly after ticking off his 124th stop, Upton Park.
Tredget’s journey began in April last year after a guitar student of his canceled a lesson.
Wondering what to do with the free time, Tredget made a first foray into London busking. Self-filmed clips of the session did well on social media and he decided to take the online “content game” more seriously, devising a way to boost his profile as a musician.
The initial plan was to play at “iconic” spots in the British capital, such as the London Eye and Big Ben, but he soon realized that “the Underground itself is pretty iconic. And it’d be a great way to just get out to all corners of the city.”
Busking inside stations is not as simple as many would imagine, with an official licensing system and fierce competition for official “pitches” to perform at.
Because of that, Tredget mainly busks on the street immediately outside the stations, playing songs by the likes of Oasis, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran.
Twenty to 30 stops in, and with earnings steadily building, he decided to turn the endeavor into a fundraiser for London homelessness charity Glass Door.
He expected the footfall around central stations such as Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus would make “Zone 1” stops the most lucrative, but in reality, he has had more luck at stops further from the center.
“People are a bit more relaxed, maybe. They’re not rushing around in the outer zones and they’ve got a bit more time to hang around and watch for a bit, have a chat,” he said.
The most successful stop so far has been Tooting Broadway, on the Northern Line, in south London.
On the day Agence France-Presse caught up with Tredget, he was making his way along the District Line, the network’s largest by number of stops. A slow trickle of passers-by paused to offer a coin or tap a bank card outside Upton Park and Plaistow stations.
Many were curious about the task of the easy-going Australian, who said that there is still a long way to go to meet his goal of raising ￡10,000 (US$12,600).
With a combination of street and online donations, he recently broke the ￡1,000 mark.
“It’ll be quite a push to get to the 10k mark, but I’ll still make that the goal. And we’ll see how far we can get,” he said.
Tredget is already envisioning future challenges, including the possibility of extending beyond the Underground to include the Overground and the Docklands Light Railway in east London.
That would add a further 158 stations to his playlist.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
RSS