THE Farley Hill National Park has a stipulated maximum capacity of 10 000 and yet reportedly at least 14 000 Reggae lovers swamped the space to hear Sizzla Kolonji, Steel Pulse, Buju Banton, Beres Hammond, Richie Spice, Barbadian Biggie Irie and several local artistes last Sunday. Despite the vast overcrowding, reports showed that the crowd behaved well, without physical altercations reported for most of the day. However, with all 13 000 tickets for the biggest entertainment show outside of Crop-Over sold, a few people broke down the perimeter fence later in the day to catch the action. The show suffered an early heavy downpour of rain, which left patrons walking gingerly through huge puddles and slippery mud, while an early electrical problem meant the show started after mid-day. However, even with these set backs folks hunkered down to have a good time, trying to make sure to find the best vantage point to witness the event.

Promoters FAS Entertainment helped facilitate this by erecting a huge LCD screen Jumbo-tron on one side of the show, far away from the stage, thereby allowing a huge section of the crowd to bring out their blankets and chairs to a surprisingly dry section of lawn. First up was a long line of Bajan performers including The Christian Roots band BDB, Hotta Flames, Don Trent, Ayanna John, Brimstone, Easy-B, Melody Man, LRG, Supa Reuben, Vizion and dancehall and reggae outfit Red Alarm with front men Damian Marvay, Buggy and Blade.

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However, to make way for the bigger names the local performers had short sets and at one point Red Alarm had their set cut by emcee Peter Coppin as did Trinidadian Groovy Monarch winner and local reggae singer Biggie Irie. Irie lamented that he was only given six minutes to perform and sang Nah Going Home”, afterwards saying he would extend his time onstage; he got an additional 10 minutes.

The crowd cheered loud and hard for Irie as they did for many of the local performers.

A long pause in the action on stage before Steel Pulse went on would leave the crowd audibly restless. This is because the bands managers asked the DJ to pause the music as they sound checked everything. After almost 20 minutes of dead air, the crowd started to voice their discomfort.

However, when Steel Pulse unleashed their string of hits, from 1978 all through to the 90s the crowd could not get enough.

Similarly, Richie Spice, was greeted by thunderous cheers from the crowd when he sang hits Brown Skin and Black like Tar.

He was followed by evergreen Uncle Beres and his band, which featured newest addition, Sharon Tucker. Beres had fans jumping with Rockaway, and Putting up a Resistance and a string of others for close to an hour.

Beres performance was followed by an equally jubilant and energised Buju Banton. With newer hits Driver A to the very popular songs from the now classic Til Shiloh album, Banton did not disappoint.

And finally Sizzla Kalonji Collins caused the thousands of fans to jump and wave.

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