Tempo television station celebrated its birthday in fine style at Six Flags Great Adventure Park in Jackson, New Jersey, on July 9, and T&T was well represented as evidenced by the sea of red, white and black. The station has been hosting the event, The Caribbean Summer Concert Series, since its first broadcastsix years ago. My journey to Six Flags took an interesting turn, as my prearranged mode of transportation became unavailable. I was left in a quandary as to how to get to the event from Yonkers in New York. Eventually I was given the contact number of a Trinidadian called Browsee, who had hired a bus to attend the event. The bus left from Brooklyn, and it was likeI never left the shores of T&T. It was a bus load of American Trinis, food galore, gallons of drinks, beautiful women, and most importantly a tolerant driver who had no idea how Trinis behaved when on an excursion. There was dancing and frolicking from the moment the bus left, to its eventual arrival at the theme park.
The concert began at 5 pm at the Northern Star Arena before a very small audience. The first performer on stage was six-year-old singer Devyn Tyson, who did a few soca tributes. She was eventually joined by New York-based Lyrikal. The two did their collaborated item, The Islands. Lyrikal then performed one ofhis 2011 soca ditties, Nuttin Undah. It was a bit surprising, at least to me, that he did not do Ramajay, which received significantly more airplay during the Carnival season. Next in line was soca artiste Patch, who has made a name for himself in the recent past, and is no stranger to controversy. In 2009, he collaborated with music producer/musician Shawn Mastamind Noel on the chutney soca hit, Rum and Roti. The two made it to the chutney finals that year. But since then they have been accusing each other of stealing the rights to the song.
In 2011 Yankee Boy, who is based in New York City, also collaborated with Patch on the song Head Nice. Patch was the guest act on the song during the 2011 Carnival season. Since then Patch had not invited Yankee Boy to sing with him at international events. During Patch's performance of Head Nice, I managed to catch up with both Yankee Boy and Shawn Noel, who were sitting together in the stands watching the performance. While some of their colleagues were visibly upset at the turn of events, Yankee Boy remained silent and just laughed at the entire situation. The action really started to heat up when Iwer George (De Boss) came on stage. Although he has been singing the same line-up of songs, in the very same order, with the same questions being asked during the performance for the last four years, Iwer hasundoubtedly proven himself to be an entertainer extraordinaire.
In addition to his usual water antics, he dismounted the stage while singing his 2K11 hit, Come to Me, disappeared into the belly of the crowd, and commanded them to divide into halves. When he sang the chorus, everyone came crashing into the him, while throwing powder and water in the air. But the highlight of the evening was Kes the Band, which hit the stage just before 9 pm. Kees has been improving significantly over the last three years and is definitely becoming a force to be reckoned with on the international scale. Since Kees added dancers to his repertoire, his fan base has seen a tremendous increase. Somefansat the venue felt that Kees and his bandmay be the ones to grab T&T's first Grammy Award. Also performing on the evening were Aaron Fresh, Tallpree, Benjai, Rikki Jai, Skinny Fabulous and Shaggy & Rayvon.
