Rebel Salute 2009 "Massive crowd"

Rebel Salute 2009, the 16th anniversary staging of the festival which was also billed as a pre-inauguration party for US President-elect Barack Obama, was a huge, long party.

The huge stage backdrop showed the fusion of Rastafarian and presidential pride, Obama's face flanked by swathes of red, green and gold. And most of the massive crowd which faced that stage stayed until they had to shade their eyes from the morning sun, which rose over it somewhere between Capleton leaping, twirling and rhythmically howling between streamers of stage smoke and Konshens remarking "a de fuss me a see morning pon stage".

They stayed until Ras Moses, Beenie Man's Rastafarian, sanitised stage persona, hit the stage at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, over half a day after Rebel Salute 16 began. The crowd gradually dwindled as he worked his way through the Murderer remix and Kette Drum, among others, although many stayed until the end at 9 am.

High quality

There had been a lot to stay through, as the concert was high quality throughout, the audience's response varying among tolerance (for persons such as the Silvertones, C-Sharp, Rootz Underground and Ernest Wilson with his slow jams), enjoyment (Errol Dunkley), enthusiasm (Cherine Anderson, Morgan Heritage, Sanchez and Mykal Roze) and over-the-top excitement (Leroy Gibbons, Lady G, Capleton, Tarrus Riley and Queen Ifrica included).

And while they were mostly done very quickly, the numerous band changes cut the concert's momentum at points.

Extended showing

When Tony Rebel delivered the night's first extended showing heading up to midnight, adjusting one of his latest singles to croon "29, 30 ... another Rebel Salute again" he could well have been counting out the number of performers at the music marathon.

They were divided into identifiable segments, Courtney Melody's Dangerous marking the shift from the younger performers to older dancehall, Lady G scoring with straightforward lyrics about sexual matters ("Gwaan look a big woman because women no short," she advised child molesters).

The lowest point of the night and the only time the very patient and well-behaved audience showed that they wanted a performer off came after Rootz Underground, when Abdel Wright croaked through Quicksand and Revolution, his accompanying acoustic guitar barely audible. Before Wright performed, though, MC Jenny Jenny said that not even asthma could prevent him from performing.

The high-pitched voices of veteran Cornel Campbell and Fyakin came back-to-back and Icho Candy tore the house down twice with his opening number, Captain Selassie I. But the early morning run of foundation artistes, although they were good, eventually wore heavily on an audience with a blend of ages and a mixture of Rastafa-rians and non-Rastafarians.

Superb voice

The Wailing Souls closed the veteran segment with Firehouse Rock Luciano's superb voice soothing with Messenger at 5 a.m. The inevitable time crunch began to hit, as Luciano protested about being called off the stage and asking for one more song (the crowd laughed as he said "an' me dress so?!") and getting it, doing It's Me Again Jah. Morgan Heritage got to do only one line of Nothing to Smile About as they closed, the crowd howling for them to finish it. They didn't get to.

Closing run

Then came the closing run, beginning with Capleton, although John Holt and Gregory Isaacs seemed misplaced (although they were still appreciated) in the 'morning ride'.

Among the bands for the night were SANE, Live Wyaa, Jah Messenger and Ruff Kut. MCs were Denise 'Isis' Miller, Mutabaruka, Jenny Jenny and Sunshine.

It was Miller who made an unusual request in the relatively early going after Tony Rebel performed, making a public appeal for corporate Jamaica to support Rebel Salute.

"We are making an appeal to the bigger heads," Miller said, pointing out "how big this show is".

"We are making an appeal to corporate Jamaica out there to give support to this massive event," she said.


Rebel Salute photo gallery

Check out the Rebel Salute photo gallery on The Gleaner's website, www.go-jamaica.com.