Festival Show - The Songs of Bob Marley and Lee Scratch Perry
A mixed bag of performances - some good, some
cringeworthy. And Mr Perry sings happy birthday to the Queen.
The show tonight was a real mixed bag. Some great
performances, some rather embarrassing. First of all Skin dropped out of the
show a few days ago. No great loss, to be honest. Then the show started about 40
minutes late, which should have been an
omen.
First on stage was Neville Staple, previously of The Specials. He was actually very good and did a lively version of Simmer Down (one of Bob Marley's early, ska hits).
Next up was Ranking Roger, previously of The English Beat. He looked good and sounded good, but didn't actually know any of the songs. I wondered if he'd even heard them. He did his entire performance reading the lyrics from sheets of paper. It was embarrassing to watch. At one point he lost his spot in the song and looked around with a confused look on his face. Finally, in an effort to fill in the empty space, he shouted "you know the words..." and pointed the mic at the audience. He wasn't spaced out or anything, he just didn't know the songs.
Cleveland Watkiss did a much much better performance (after the Brinsley Forde got his name wrong in the introduction).
Brinsley Forde (who used to be in Aswad, is now a 6 Music presenter, and was MCing the show) joined Aisha(?) on stage after she had done a couple of songs for a duet.
Then Michael Rose returned and did a great set of three or four songs.
The band behind it all included Sly and Robbie, as well as Lloyd "Guitsy" Willis (who played guitar on Rastaman Vibration) plus a percussionist and a keyboard player.
The entire ensemble did the obligatory "get everyone up on stage at the same time" bit, and they made a big deal of having Finlay Quaye on stage too, although he was essentially stuck in the back the whole time. The whole thing had the air of something that had been put together in the middle of the afternoon, with only the vaguest idea of what they were going to do. Curious, considering it had, in fact, been planned for months.
After all that, Lee Scratch Perry came out for a short set with a different band and Mad Professor doing the mix. He walked out on stage with his red Samsonite suitcase and proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to the Queen for about 20 minutes.
He did a few more songs, including a rather odd version of what seemed to be The Mighty Quin.
And then picked up his suitcase and left the stage singing.
First on stage was Neville Staple, previously of The Specials. He was actually very good and did a lively version of Simmer Down (one of Bob Marley's early, ska hits).
Next up was Ranking Roger, previously of The English Beat. He looked good and sounded good, but didn't actually know any of the songs. I wondered if he'd even heard them. He did his entire performance reading the lyrics from sheets of paper. It was embarrassing to watch. At one point he lost his spot in the song and looked around with a confused look on his face. Finally, in an effort to fill in the empty space, he shouted "you know the words..." and pointed the mic at the audience. He wasn't spaced out or anything, he just didn't know the songs.
Cleveland Watkiss did a much much better performance (after the Brinsley Forde got his name wrong in the introduction).
Brinsley Forde (who used to be in Aswad, is now a 6 Music presenter, and was MCing the show) joined Aisha(?) on stage after she had done a couple of songs for a duet.
Then Michael Rose returned and did a great set of three or four songs.
The band behind it all included Sly and Robbie, as well as Lloyd "Guitsy" Willis (who played guitar on Rastaman Vibration) plus a percussionist and a keyboard player.
The entire ensemble did the obligatory "get everyone up on stage at the same time" bit, and they made a big deal of having Finlay Quaye on stage too, although he was essentially stuck in the back the whole time. The whole thing had the air of something that had been put together in the middle of the afternoon, with only the vaguest idea of what they were going to do. Curious, considering it had, in fact, been planned for months.
After all that, Lee Scratch Perry came out for a short set with a different band and Mad Professor doing the mix. He walked out on stage with his red Samsonite suitcase and proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to the Queen for about 20 minutes.
He did a few more songs, including a rather odd version of what seemed to be The Mighty Quin.
And then picked up his suitcase and left the stage singing.
Posted: Sat - June 14, 2003 at 02:41 PM Meltdown The Shows Email Comments
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Total entries in this blog: 34
Total entries in this category: 8
Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM
Total entries in this category: 8
Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM