Aba A Luke

The I Am Leg­end con­cert ex­pe­ri­ence, which took place over the East­er week­end, will stand as the most ful­fill­ing and en­joy­able out­ing in 2010 for thou­sands who at­tend­ed the Trinidad leg of the show. Dubbed Di­men­sions of Love and fea­tur­ing leg­endary reg­gae artistes, Beres Ham­mond, Shag­gy and Rayvon, and Pee­tah and Gramps Mor­gan of the Mor­gan Her­itage fam­i­ly, along with the young and tal­ent­ed Gypt­ian, the show proved to be just the right rem­e­dy for the crime and neg­a­tive vibes in T&T. From as ear­ly as 7.30 pm, pa­trons be­gan fil­ing in. How­ev­er, it wasn't un­til some three hours lat­er, af­ter a per­for­mance by lo­cal reg­gae-rock band, Or­ange Sky, that the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah tru­ly re­flect­ed the de­sire of a peo­ple who yearn for love and con­scious­ness.

En­ter­tained be­tween per­for­mances by the Boom­cham­pi­ons 94.1FM DJs and an­nounc­ers, the gen­er­al ad­mis­sion, VIP and VVIP ar­eas–of which the VIP seemed to host the small­est num­ber of peo­ple–were giv­en the mu­sic of the 80s and ear­ly 90s, mixed in with some of the bet­ter songs of this time. Hit­ting the stage first, af­ter 10 pm, was young love, Gypt­ian. His sweet voice filled the air, cap­tur­ing men and women alike. With his bar­rage of hits, among them, I Can Feel Your Pain, This Feel­ing and the 2010 chart top­per, Hold Yuh, Gypt­ian de­liv­ered a set that tru­ly set the pace for the oth­ers to fol­low. Mor­gan Her­itage was next and they de­liv­ered. The broth­ers belt­ed out hits of the past, a favourite of which was Don't Haf­fi Dread. Gramps and Pee­tah Mor­gan, both of whom have so­lo al­bums aside from the Mor­gan Her­itage vibe, gave the au­di­ence mu­sic to sway to and hits to smile about, with the thou­sands gath­ered in gen­er­al ad­mis­sion rais­ing hands and singing along.

The show, which end­ed around 4 am on Sun­day, cli­maxed just af­ter 2 am, when the artiste who'd been high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed in the weeks lead­ing up to the show walked on stage.

Beres Ham­mond's voice and style proved scin­til­lat­ing and, as though he'd nev­er been heard be­fore by the es­ti­mat­ed 5,000 pa­trons, the reg­gae-rock­ers croon­er caused many to shriek with joy with his ren­di­tions of Rock­away, I Feel Good, Sweet Lies, They're Gonna Talk and the count­less oth­ers that in­voked on­ly love. Shag­gy and Rayvon were the last act to hit the stage and by the time they'd done so, the crowd had been tak­en on a high that sim­ply couldn't be lost. Shag­gy voiced dis­ap­proval for what he called seg­re­ga­tion be­tween the peo­ple in the three ar­eas of the event, chant­i­ng "Where my peo­ple?" Shag­gy brought sex ap­peal with his now well-known rhythms. From Boom­bas­tic to An­gel, It Wasn't Me, Car­oli­na and the col­lab­o­ra­tive Big Up with Rayvon, the Gram­my award-win­ning in­ter­na­tion­al reg­gae artiste of­fered a shock­wave of en­er­gy dur­ing the clos­ing min­utes of the con­cert. All in all, those who'd come out to ex­pe­ri­ence the mu­sic of true leg­ends walked away sat­is­fied. They came, they saw, they felt and, with no in­ci­dents re­port­ed on the night, they left in peace, love and har­mo­ny.