Passengers break into joyful conga as busker sings at Tube station
Wilfy Williams was singing Twist And Shout at Leicester Square station as the conga broke out.
A busker on the Tube whose audience spontaneously burst into a conga has gone viral.
Wilfy Williams was playing at Leicester Square underground station in London on Friday night when the crowd broke out the classic party dance.
“It’s not that big of a deal having crowds singing and dancing like that, it happens quite a lot, but I think why it went viral is they started doing the conga,” Mr Williams told the PA Media news agency. “That’s bizarre isn’t it?
The moment was captured on video by Helena Whittle, who was heading home from a friend’s birthday party.
“I came down the escalator and I could hear him,” she told PA. “There was a group of Spanish young people, boys and girls, four or five of them, who were watching him so I stayed with them. They got the whole party going because they were clapping and singing along.”
Ms Whittle took several videos as the crowd slowly increased, including one that captured the moment the conga formed as Mr Williams sand Twist And Shout.
“I guess it was the song he was singing and he was getting a response from the audience,” she said. “It just happened to be that so many people came down and all heard him, one thing leads to another, you see people dancing you suddenly you’re not too shy to dance as well – maybe the time of day helps as well, being half past 11 at night, happy hour, weekend starting.”
Ms Whittle shared the video with Mr Williams and some of the people who’d been dancing in the crowd as the passengers dispersed, as well as sharing it on Facebook.
“I’ve been waiting for this to happen,” Mr Williams, who has been busking for around 10 years, said. “I’ve seen all these audiences filming me and I’m like ‘one day this is going to go viral’ and I’ve just been waiting.
“I think it was the conga that did it.”
Mr Williams, whose song A New Beginning was released in December, said he believes “the political environment” means people are looking for things to make them smile.
“People are up and down and then all of a sudden there’s joy, and we all just need a bit of joy in the world,” he said.
“And that is a musician’s job, or a comedian’s job, or any artist, is to bring a bit of joy.”
