Reggae Sumfest 2017!

At the start of 2017 I said to myself, "Self! You're gonna live your best life! You're gonna do new things and you're gonna be happy." Well we're halfway through the year & I'm not there yet but baby Jesus knows I've been doing quite a good job.The 2017 staging of Reggae Sumfest was scheduled to be held at it's longstanding venue Catherine Hall Estate from July 16-22 with the tagline "Our Music Our Festival." I've never been to Reggae Sumfest before. In fact, I have a love hate relationship with concerts. Concerts are tricky business. It's almost like a full shift at work except I pay my money to fight in a crowd for some standing space for eight hours only to hear a few musicians perform a half hearted rendition of a few of their songs. With all that in mind though what drew me to this concert was the fact that my friend Ras-I was making his debut performance. I figured I might as well round up the crew, load up the whip, and drive down to Mobay for the night. We made a whole trip out of it. I could tell you that whole story but that's for another post; this is about Sumfest!We attended Main Event Night 2 and we arrived at to the venue at about 8:30PM just in time to catch the Rasta Man's debut. Running through his most popular songs "Dread Inna Babylon" and "Bad Boy Bully" the Danger Man was in full form. Even the host Mutabaruka gave him props for his cover of Third World's hit song "Roots." The general even slipped in a small piece of Musical Youth's "Pass The Dutchie" in his performance. I can proudly say [with a little bias of course] that it was a fantastic performance and a joy to see Ras-I on the big stage!Photo courtesy of Emceekane Photography[Link To Ras-I's Sumfest Performace]In life everything has good along with the bad and as the night progressed I realized what I signed up for. Sumfest had a good set up. Big stage to the front, big open space for patrons in the middle, and food court and booths in the back. I think if I go back to Sumfest again I'd sign up and work out of one of the food stalls because I'd be sure to go home with a heavy money clip! Other than the guys out front selling "Reggae chairs," these food stalls had the most RIDICULOUS prices!  I'm sure I'd make a killing selling a small box of cold curry goat for $1000 JMD.The show itself had a some very memorable performances but for me what mostly took from the experience was the band changes. The live instrumentation is my favourite aspect of the show itself, but each big artiste had their own band, and each band change was between thirty minutes to one hour which made me realize why some of these show get dragged out until morning light. Imagine seeing grown men & women fast asleep in the grass waiting on the bands to change over LOL...You can tell the difference between a regular artiste and an entertainer. Stage presence and crowd control are key. Personally, I think Mad Cobra surprisingly had one of the best performances of the night. He had total control of the crowd and I honestly didn't remember he had so many hits. Everybody in the crowd was raving.  Sean Paul being the international star he is of course did well however as one of the few representing us on the world stage, I don't think he'll ever get the props he deserves from us Jamaicans. Honourable mentions to Kabaka Pyramid & Stephen "Ragga" Marley. I really think Sean Kingston could have stayed home but hey that's just my opinion. Queen Ifrica also had a very memorable performance rolling out hit after hit but by this point it was about 5:30AM, and quite frankly I had enough and I rolled outta Catherine Hall Estate with the swiftness. I missed Chris Martin, Beenie Man & Sizzla's performances, but I heard Chris Martin singing about some Schweppes business when I drove past. Maybe he was thirsty or something...All in all. Sumfest was an interesting experience but I can't promise anybody that they would find me there again.Until the next one! Doofs out!