Ann Arbor musician Laith Al-Saadi kicked off the 53rd annual Hash Bash on Saturday, April 6, with a musical tribute to the late John Sinclair.
Performing on guitar for a crowd of thousands on the University of Michigan Diag, he played the song John Lennon wrote in the early 1970s for Sinclair, the Ann Arbor poet who served two and a half years of a 10-year prison sentence for two marijuana joints.
“They gave him 10 for two — what else can Judge Colombo do? We gotta set him free,” Al-Saadi sang, expressing hopes afterward that Sinclair, who died Tuesday at 82, is finally truly free.
But the war is not over, Al-Saadi said.
“They freed one drug and still believe prohibition works for every other drug,” he said, lamenting “they’re still putting people in cages for what they put in their bodies.”
Saturday’s smoke fest took place where it all started back in April 1972 after Sinclair was freed from prison following a long legal battle against Michigan’s felony marijuana laws.
It was in large part a memorial and festive celebration of his life, sprinkled with a mix of somber remembrances and some lighter moments. People young and old alike were in attendance, some who’ve been coming to Hash Bash since the 1970s.
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