The Birkenhead Day of the Dead, founded in 2017 by former KLF bandmates Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, offers an alternative to conventional funerals, featuring a procession through Birkenhead Park and a ceremony at the People's Pyramid, where bricks contain the cremated ashes of loved ones. The event, originally known as Toxteth Day of the Dead when hosted in L8, takes place annually.
A Personal Inspiration
Cauty told the ECHO that his brother's death just before 2017 sparked the idea. He said: "I really started thinking about [starting something like] this when my brother died just before 2017. He had a great funeral, but I really wanted to process through a forest, and then set fire to his car on a pyre, and all that kind of stuff, and it was all impossible to do because of rules and regulations. So, that got us all thinking about, what could we do that's different. And how could we remember the dead in a really cool way each year."
The event's chief engineer, Steve Lowe, who helps coordinate the occasion, said he was initially sceptical. He said: "At the time it seemed more nuts than it really is. And it's partly because they didn't really know what they were doing and how they were going to do it. But as we realised, all we're doing is building a memorial, and all we're doing is finding a way that people can be involved, that they can have a part of this thing."
Growing Popularity
Since starting nine years ago, the event has grown in popularity. Cauty said: "I think once people got over the shock that me and Bill weren't going to be making records anymore, we were going to be just doing funeral stuff, they really warmed to the idea straight away, but it has built gradually over the years."
He added: "People seem to really, really like it, and people come back every year. People who've got people in the pyramid, they come back, and it's a place where you can remember your dead people, the ancestors, we're calling them now. There's a sort of hardcore of about 400 to 500 people who turn up all the time."
Rethinking Funerals
Cauty believes the uptake reflects a feeling among certain generations that the traditional funeral format has run its course. He said: "I think a lot of people of my generation, and the younger generations as well, are pretty fed up with the whole funeral business as it is. It’s pretty depressing when you think about what you have to go through, the massive cost of the whole thing."
He continued: "We're the rock and roll generation, we demand more than what is there already. It's just not good enough. Even though my brother's funeral was great, and everybody was really good, it just needs to be better, it just needs to be something else."
"This is an experiment. We don't know whether it's going to work, but so far, it does seem to be working, and people feel like this is the way to do it, this is how we should say goodbye to our people."
Besides the People's Pyramid ceremony, the event includes live music, films, and this year an after show hosted by record label Sports Banger in Future Yard. Birkenhead Day of the Dead is due to take place on November 21.
