Concert started at roughly 9.30pm with some warm-up Guyanese reggae singers, including Mystic who has so perfected the Jamaican accent and dialogue I didn't understand a word he said but the crowd rocked/reggaed away happily.
I looked into the VIP section- charge U$100 and saw mainly under 25yrs - the cool crowd and I wondered how many of them actually earned their ticket/pass?
The stage was International-worthy:
The concert seemed heavily subsidised ( U$15 for the general entry) but the turn-out was relatively poor - rather like the Feminition thing it had a limited number of booths/stalls. Maybe the organisers had an inkling of this and organised the Stage outside the National Stadium- not expecting the thousands! For my part I was a bit surprised to stand for 4 hours, but if you think about it-- I did pay U$15!
Not unexpectedly the smell of marijuana saturated the air and people were openly smoking joints. I was a bit sadden to see a 14/15yr old and his friend being led into the middle of the crowd by a decidedly dodgy-looking man and while the friend took an occasion puff from a spliff the boy reminded me of the youngsters at my last job in England where the idea was to get as high as possible as quickly as possible-- alcohol being the drug of choice. He and his dodgy mentor had large joints and were mutually lighting each other's and inhaling strongly- later the man concentrated on keeping the boy's joint lit. The boy began to look unsteady on his feet and a stumbled a bit - how the definition of 'having fun' has changed! The young Police Officers on duty being used as tickets-collectors and to prevent people from breaching the VIP section. Really a metaphor for the rich walling themselves off from the riff-raff? Parents do you really know what your child is up to? I wonder in the current atmosphere of 'it's cool to do it', if they realise how many lost years will accrue? My druggie cousin finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel 'losing it' and stabbing someone for a relatively trivial matter - seems to me- rashness and lack of judgement is a side-effect. Mr Marley at the beginning joked about weed and recommended it for those people feeling the stresses of Modern Life.
I looked into the VIP section- charge U$100 and saw mainly under 25yrs - the cool crowd and I wondered how many of them actually earned their ticket/pass?
The concert seemed heavily subsidised ( U$15 for the general entry) but the turn-out was relatively poor - rather like the Feminition thing it had a limited number of booths/stalls. Maybe the organisers had an inkling of this and organised the Stage outside the National Stadium- not expecting the thousands! For my part I was a bit surprised to stand for 4 hours, but if you think about it-- I did pay U$15!
Not unexpectedly the smell of marijuana saturated the air and people were openly smoking joints. I was a bit sadden to see a 14/15yr old and his friend being led into the middle of the crowd by a decidedly dodgy-looking man and while the friend took an occasion puff from a spliff the boy reminded me of the youngsters at my last job in England where the idea was to get as high as possible as quickly as possible-- alcohol being the drug of choice. He and his dodgy mentor had large joints and were mutually lighting each other's and inhaling strongly- later the man concentrated on keeping the boy's joint lit. The boy began to look unsteady on his feet and a stumbled a bit - how the definition of 'having fun' has changed! The young Police Officers on duty being used as tickets-collectors and to prevent people from breaching the VIP section. Really a metaphor for the rich walling themselves off from the riff-raff? Parents do you really know what your child is up to? I wonder in the current atmosphere of 'it's cool to do it', if they realise how many lost years will accrue? My druggie cousin finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel 'losing it' and stabbing someone for a relatively trivial matter - seems to me- rashness and lack of judgement is a side-effect. Mr Marley at the beginning joked about weed and recommended it for those people feeling the stresses of Modern Life.
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