Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips

Back in the mid-80s to ear­ly 90s, con­certs fea­tur­ing R&B, rap and pop stars, usu­al­ly at the height of their game, were a reg­u­lar fea­ture in this coun­try.Boyz II Men, C&C Mu­sic Fac­to­ry, MC Ham­mer, Queen Lat­i­fah, Colour Me Badd and Run DMC, were among those who filled the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um as young Tri­nis flocked to hear and see their favourite stars in a pre-In­ter­net, pre-YouTube, pre-ur­ban ra­dio sta­tion era.Per­haps it was with this mem­o­ry, the or­gan­is­ers of the Red­light Con­cert Se­ries chose the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um as their venue of choice for their first con­cert fea­tur­ing R&B sen­sa­tions Ne-Yo and R Kel­ly.It was an am­bi­tious ef­fort to say the least tak­ing many fac­tors in­to con­sid­er­a­tion.

The con­cert fell on Di­vali week­end, it was held the day af­ter many were sup­posed to be in Bar­ba­dos for the now-post­poned Ri­han­na con­cert, and it was held a month be­fore Christ­mas, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for some to part with their gift mon­ey or cos­tume sav­ings for that mat­ter.Add in the facts that these stars have a track record of not show­ing up and that R&B mu­sic is now con­fined to Sun­day night love shows and adult con­tem­po­rary sta­tions and what you got were a pletho­ra of emp­ty seats on Sat­ur­day night at the sta­di­um, a vast space, which eas­i­ly holds up to 70,000 on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day.Emp­ty seats and rain aside, the pro­mot­ers, Pollen Na­tion, P2 Pro­duc­tions and Par­sons Cre­ative, kept their promise to de­liv­er a far su­pe­ri­or ex­pe­ri­ence to what we have be­come ac­cus­tomed.The Black Di­a­mond and Red­light Lounge ar­eas, the two VIP spots with tick­et prices well over $1,000, were well equipped with bars and food sta­tions.The but­ler ser­vice in the Red­light Lounge seemed to be work­ing all night and the bath­rooms were kept clean and stocked by at­ten­dants. Even when rain fell, at­ten­dants of­fered pa­per tow­els to pa­trons to wipe up their seats.On the per­for­mance end, the head­lin­ers met ex­pec­ta­tions.

Ne-Yo, who flew in on Thurs­day and spent some time get­ting to know the coun­try, seemed re­laxed and at ease on stage as he de­liv­ered in CD qual­i­ty vo­cals, hits such as Miss In­de­pen­dent, Ad­dict­ed, Clos­er and So Sick, among many oth­ers.He fur­ther won over the lo­cals when he brought on sur­prise guest artistes Ja­maican dance­hall star Pop­caan and Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller. Pop­caan was not im­pres­sive as a live singer but Kees de­light­ed his fans with some of his hits in­clud­ing Wot­less, dur­ing which he tried to show Ne-Yo how to wine in what was clear­ly the high­light of the night.The hour-long wait for R Kel­ly killed the vibe for many, but when the Pied Piper of R&B fi­nal­ly deigned to re­gale us with his pres­ence, af­ter en­sur­ing back­stage was cleared of any on­look­ers, he did not dis­ap­point.He was not as en­gag­ing as Ne-Yo but his vo­cals were on point es­pe­cial­ly when he did a ren­di­tion of one of his biggest songs I Be­lieve I Could Fly.The sup­port­ing acts, Machel Mon­tano HD and Bun­ji Gar­lin with Fay Ann and Asy­lum, seemed liked odd in­gre­di­ents to the mix but we were promised per­for­mances in keep­ing with the mood of the night.

I missed Asy­lum's per­for­mance due to an ear­li­er as­sign­ment but from all re­ports they did mix up their reper­toire, with Fay Ann par­tic­u­lar­ly show­ing off her vo­cals with Bruno Mars' songs.Stat­ing that he was warned to take it down, Mon­tano brought Ba­jan sax­o­phon­ist Ar­turo Tap­pin on to add a nice reg­gae vibe to songs such as Make Love To You, Bend Over and One More Wine.

His voice seemed strained but sound­ed smooth in a low­er reg­is­ter when he did a cov­er of Tar­rus Ri­ley's One Drop and his own I See Lots.Less is some­times more and re­al­ly, Mon­tano alone could have car­ried his set with­out bring­ing on Patrice Roberts, Farmer Nap­py and his Sealots Project cast: Pos­i­tive, Col­lis Du­ran­ty and Prophet Ben­jamin. None of them added to his time on stage and mic prob­lems plagued them through­out.The high­light of Mon­tano's per­for­mance was the pre­miere of his 2014 hit Hap­pi­est Man Alive, since it's re­lease last week, the groovy so­ca song has been get­ting a fair bit of air­play.Ku­dos must be giv­en to DJ Kaot­ic, the So­ca Spe­cial­ist, who kept the vibes go­ing be­tween the long band changeovers with a range of mu­sic from R&B to dance­hall.The event was billed as a sit-down af­fair but be­tween his mu­sic and the rain, sit­ting was not in the cards that night.