Aba A. Luke

A well-lit WASA Sports Grounds in St Joseph wel­comed thou­sands of ea­ger fete lovers on Sat­ur­day night, to what was coined the Ul­ti­mate Wa­ter Fete. From as ear­ly as 11 pm, pa­trons be­gan walk­ing in­to the venue and by 12.30 am, the large field was al­most filled to ca­pac­i­ty. Un­like last year's WASA ex­pe­ri­ence, the has­sle to en­ter the venue was elim­i­nat­ed, as pa­trons were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to walk freely from the front gates to the area where tick­ets were col­lect­ed and scan checks done. Bun­ji, Fay-Ann and Asy­lum kicked things off ear­ly, with a great per­for­mance. Dressed in sweats, Fay-Ann de­liv­ered with her 2010 hits, while Bun­ji gave ea­ger rev­el­ers near the front of the stage just what they want­ed to hear, in­clud­ing his con­tro­ver­sial track, Who You Rather, as well as oth­ers from years gone by. Near the back of the venue, the band's per­for­mance was met with mediocre ap­pre­ci­a­tion as pa­trons com­ing in sought the right lo­ca­tion to plant them­selves for the night and oth­ers seemed to sim­ply feel it was just too ear­ly to get on as they even­tu­al­ly would.

RIGHT: ?Denise Bel­fon dur­ing her per­for­mance.

Amid the crowd of WASA rev­el­ers on Sat­ur­day night, one PNM min­is­ter was seen lim­ing with friends. In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal met and greet­ed many in the crowd, all the while, jump­ing, wav­ing, chip­ping and win­ing as the mu­sic rang out. Re­gion­al so­ca artistes Tall­pree and Prob­lem Child took the stage with the Asy­lum Band, each send­ing the crowd wild with their the­atrics, how­ev­er it was Tall­pree who scored top points with his 2010 J'Ou­vert track, Wicked Jab. The po­lice pres­ence at WASA was com­mend­able, as the au­thor­i­ties main­tained or­der at the fete that many, in re­cent years, had be­come dis­en­chant­ed about, due to vi­o­lence. This year, though, there weren't any no­table in­ci­dents, as pa­trons all seemed to have on­ly en­joy­ment on their minds. Be­tween bands, the crowd was en­ter­tained by DJ Mar­lon Mr Mu­sic and Ringo Star, while Giselle The Wassy One made her pres­ence felt through­out the night as she kept the mass­es hyped with her pow­er­ful or­ders and chants.

By 1.30 am, the vibe was on point and the con­stant chants of "wheel and pull up" by Ringo Star, ini­tial­ly viewed by many as an an­noy­ance, be­came bear­able as pa­trons kept the al­co­hol flow­ing, and their feet, waists and arms mov­ing to the rhythm of sweet so­ca mu­sic. Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter and You took to the stage next, and as though they'd been an­tic­i­pat­ing this fete with bat­ed breath, their new, sleek style of so­ca in­vad­ed WASA, en­er­gis­ing the mass­es from the front to the rear of the sa­van­nah. For 45 min­utes, Shur­wayne gave WASA en­er­gy, mo­men­tum and rhythm. Jump­ing in­to his old-school kaiso set, he in­tro­duced the youths to the mu­sic that led the way to to­day's so­ca. The band's ver­sa­til­i­ty in­spired three or four dance­hall hits, which were wel­comed by those who ea­ger­ly moved to the beat. The Mil­lion­aire Fam­i­ly and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous came on dur­ing the band's per­for­mance, tear­ing the place down and keep­ing the pace up­beat.

Shur­wayne and You left the crowd pumped like no one else had. The Roy Cape Kaiso All Stars were last to per­form and by that time, all bar­ri­ers had bro­ken down and the thrill of a clean, safe and fun-filled WASA fete gave every­one some­thing to smile about. Blaxx of­fered his 2010 hits, Zom­bie and Huntin', along with 2009's Tusty and 2008's Breath­less. Ri­ta Jones' pow­er­ful vo­cals reached far in­to the night but re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter and You proved to be a hard act to fol­low on WASA night. All in all, the fete earned a nine out of ten–with just one point lost for too much talk by Ringo Star.