So­ca artiste Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller was al­most un­able to per­form in the ben­e­fit con­cert for his sis­ter Danielle last night af­ter po­lice tried to shut down the event.

Around mid­night of­fi­cers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice sig­nalled that the par­ty was to end, how­ev­er, Chi­nese Laun­dry (An­tho­ny Chow Lin On), Machel Mon­tano and Danielle begged for Kees to be able to per­form at least one song.

Kees se­lect­ed his pop­u­lar 2019 hit "Sa­van­nah Grass, which he per­formed for 20 min­utes much to the de­light of the crowd and the dis­may of the of­fi­cers.

Stay­ing Alive, the ben­e­fit con­cert was held in ho­n­our of film­mak­er and pro­duc­er Danielle. Danielle has re­mained on dial­y­sis since be­ing di­ag­nosed with end-stage re­nal fail­ure three years ago.

The trans­plant pro­ce­dure and af­ter­care are es­ti­mat­ed to cost in ex­cess of $400,000. The con­cert was held at O2 Park Ch­aguara­mas to help Danielle raise funds to cov­er her med­ical ex­pens­es.

One of the high­lights of the event was Machel Mon­tano per­form­ing on a stage in T&T for the first time since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.
Machel was emo­tion­al as he per­formed.

"I have no words you made me the hap­pi­est man alive," Mon­tano said be­fore per­form­ing his So­ca hit with the same name. Mon­tano cred­it­ed Danielle for di­rect­ing his "Big Truck" mu­sic video.

So­ca leg­end Su­perblue (Austin Lyons) al­so made a sur­prise ap­pear­ance with Mon­tano.
Al­so per­form­ing at the event were Free­town Col­lec­tive, Sekon Sta (Nes­ta Box­hill), Preedy (Akeem Chance), Or­ange Sky and lo­cal dance­hall artiste Rheon El­bourne.

The Na­tion­al Or­gan Trans­plant Unit was al­so present to sign peo­ple up to be­come donors.

Re­porter: Joel Julien