Purification

What was billed as the purification concert seemed more like an umbrella party. The heavy downpour earlier in the day and the intermittent rain during the evening must have obviously deterred some patrons from the National Park where the first major show of 2009 was in session.

It was sad for those who missed it. Those die hard reggae fans that came out were treated to a high quality show by most of the headlining artists.

First up was Guyana’s own first born who dished out some of their biggest and best known numbers many of which had love for each other as their themes. Of course their staple tune “Black Joint” was very well welcomed by those in attendance who showed their appreciation and enthusiasm throughout the performance. First Born must be commended for a superb performance and as always their conscious vibes were very welcomed.

Next up was Queen Ifrica of “Daddy don’t touch me there” fame. The Queen who came on stage looking very much unlike many of the female stars that we’ve seen recently was a revelation to many. Wearing little makeup and no shoes she delivered a great performance. Her many songs were aimed at spreading the message of love, harmony and togetherness however during the latter part of her performance, apparently the Queen had a change of heart and decided it was time to rant and rage against…yea you guessed it, the gay community…apparently we’re supposed to love and include everyone and be merry with everyone except those gay people…come on people, it’s a new freaking year. Queen Ifrica is just another of the many hypocrites we have out there…preach love for everyone but attach exceptions. I’m sure that all I and the rest of the Gay community need at the moment is for this alleged Queen (Queen of what by the way?) to come and tell anyone how to live their live. I certainly am not telling her how to live her fucking life…oh BITCH PLEASE! Ya know what, let me stop about her…it’s just not worth it. Her performance was aight but I couldn’t wait for that bitch to get off the damn stage.

After that wretch it would have been such a pleasure to have anyone else on stage, even the usually annoying Charmaine Blackman, but this time we were subjected to another jackass of a performer. Who the hell is Jah Thunder? The promoters should have left that fucker where he was, he was just plain annoying. Apparently his aim was the out cuss all the other performers, well congratulations he certainly won that contest handily. Then if that wasn’t enough, he wanted the audience to chant and call for fire, apparently the ass isn’t aware of what that particular expression means to Guyanese, thankfully though, most of them just ignored him. I tell you this, the best part of the evening came when his performance ended…Good Ridden.

After those two Angering acts, it was the greatest pleasure to have Natural Black on stage. How the hell did this guy not win a single Accolade award is beyond me. He is undoubtedly the best performer we have at the moment. Anyways, Natural’s performance was superlative. The crowd support for this local star was tremendous as many sang along to all of his songs including “It nice”, “Gideon Boots”, “High Grade” and more. There were even some new ones in there. Natural performance was excellent and his message was clear, clean and utterly positive. I hope that it resonated with everyone that was there.

Culminating the night was the headliner of the show. Capleton was awesome and like Natural Black before him, he was fully of energy. His many hit songs were sung by the adoring crowd who sang along and waved their hands. There were Guyanese and Ethiopian flags in the air as he sang and implored all to live life. And unlike the Queen earlier, he reminded every man has the right to determine his destiny.
“Who do you think you are?” “Equal Rights” (ya hear that Queen Bitch?), and “Jah Jah city” were some of the more memorable songs that he performed. Capleton delivered a performance deserving of the seasoned veteran he is. He was also in preacher’s mode, imploring everyone to stand firm in THEIR belief and not HIS belief as someone earlier called for. In his message he called for the eradication of AIDS, SARS, Bird Flu but sadly he didn’t say Queen Ifrica also.

At the end of his performance at 3am, the show as over and the crowd left, mostly satisfied.