Yes dear reader, we were off again to another European festival to bring them the 'Shanti' vibes. We are also providing the backing for another artiste, Tenna Stelin. We were leaving on an 06:58 Eurostar,this in itself was not a problem as Aba was playing the 'University of Dub' at the 'Scala' the night before and that finished at 06:00. That meant that we just had to walk across the road to St Pancras……'simples' as the meerkat would say. Then let me tell you dear reader the best laid plans of mice and men are oft to go astray. Well if astray means losing man or man gawn missing, never a truer word has been written. Let me explain. I arrived at the 'Scala' at 05:15. On entering the arena I bucked up on Jahorge, Blood, Fuzzy, Jahmel, Cyrus, Conqueror and Kojak, but no Sweet T or Henry. Well I thought providing they are here to move at 06:00 there is no problem. Come 06:00 when I rallied the crew to move there was still no Sweet T or Henry. T was an issue, but Henry providing he was at the station then there was no problem. I called T's mobile a number of times but got no answer. Conqueror phoned him and he answered. Conqueror then asked him where he was as we were about to move. He answered that he was not in the vicinity and so I took the phone and told him he had 20 minutes to get to the station or he would be left……Man astray. We arrived at the station at 06:10 and the place was teeming with people, what with this being the first week of the UK summer vacation period. 06:15 Dub Judah and Barry from the 'Twinkle Brothers' arrive. They were playing the same festival as us. Blood calls Henry only to be told he is trying to find parking around Marylebone. Marylebone! No, no dear reader, Marylebone is close to Paddington station, not St Pancras station and the distance between the two stations is a few kilometres, not easy walking distance with a great big keyboard under your arm. Seem like Henry has got his bearings mixed up. 06:20 looking at the ever expanding queues I tell the Shanti-Ites sans Henry to check in and I will wait till the last moment before checking in myself. This was to allow Henry as much time as possible to arrive. Same with Sweet T, if he arrived before I went through check in, all well and good, if not, so be it! 06:30 I had enough of waiting and went and joined the shortest queue. The fact of being over six foot tall I was able to do a meerkat and scan the horizon to see any arrivals whilst still waiting in the queue. 06:35 Sweet T came rushing into the departure hall and I waved my hand in the air and he spots me and comes steaming over. He starts apologising profusely and I stop him in his tracks. Cos sorry nah go buy soldier lorry..seen. I get a phone call from Blood who asked me is there anywhere I can leave Henry's ticket so he can collect it. I looked over and saw the 'Eurostar e-Ticket Collection' point and I tell T to hold the space as I raced over there and deposited Henry's ticket with the girl at the reception desk. I had to persuade her to let me leave the ticket, but in time she agreed. I inform Blood to tell Henry exactly where I have left his ticket. Man missing, presumed lost 06:45 I see Henry hussle into the departure area just as I had gone pass check in. I call Blood to tell him that Henry had entered the station. 06:55 T and I finally get through the long queues at passport control after me just purposely walking straight to the front of the queue like me is official. If anyone tried to say anything, I gave them the old skunk eye and that put a stop to any debate. Sometimes it is an advantage being a six foot odd, person of ethic heritage that is able to switch into a demeanour that is only one step away from the bugged eyed, full blown psychotic, psychopath look. People do not tend to want to involve you in much debate, Yuh get me? 06:57 T and I walked over to where the crew are sitting and I tell them it is time to board the train as the platforms are now open. Blood is still looking out for Henry. 07:00 we are all aboard the train and Blood phones Henry to find out what is happening. You notice dear reader how we haff fi phone man and man naw call us and is dem at fault. Strange World the man call Sam Addie ah live in. Henry tells Blood that here is no ticket left at the desk for him so he is going home. Blood neglected to tell me about the last bit about how him ah go home, for if he did I would have left the train and gone and found Henry to explain to him just misguided he was. I would have then brought a ticket for the next train without Henry and met up with the crew in Lille….Man missing, confirmed lost! On arrival at Lille we departed the train and made our way to the entrance to await our collection by the festival drivers. There was one car and three minibuses, but one minibus had not yet arrived according to the festival person. So I sent Blood and Fuzzy off with the Twinkle dem while I waited with the others for the arrival of the late bus. On the arrival of the missing minibus the crew get on board as I, Sweet T and a couple of others get into the festival person's car. The drive to the festival took about an hour. On arrival at the festival I went and greeted the organisers so they knew we had arrived safely and collected the wrist bands and the refreshments tokens. I then went and inspected the FOH mixer and introduce myself to the sound installation engineer. I then joined Jahmel and Cyrus checking out the stage and the backline being provided. Our engineer, who had arrived before us and had departed to the house we were staying in, had not done this. One man nearly missing, one man and his organ confirmed missing and our sound engineer has not done the prerequisite site survey. Bwoy are the spirits conspiring against us to wreck the show?

The checks done we then got back into the minibus and made our way to the residence we are staying at. We arrive at the house and link up with the rest of the band. The owners of the property also happen to be the parents of Fillip one of the organisers of the festival. The rooms were allocated or in this case 'claim jumped' by those who had arrived earlier, but it was cool. Food and drink were laid out for us and we sat down and partook of the fare.

We were being picked at 17:30 so we could do our sound check at 18:00 for a performance time of 18:45. Total time of the band being in stage including the Tenna Stelin set would be 1 hour and 45 minutes. At 16:30 the minibus arrived to take us to the festival. We departed at 16:50 and arrived on the festival site at 17:00. We listened to the band that was performing for a time and then I decided to go wandering around to see what was happening. I buck up on Idren Natural part of 'I&I Oneness' running a little stall selling some of his music. I also saw one or two bredrin and sistren from other parts of Europe who had come to take in the Shanti-Ites vibes.

The performing band finished their last number and left the stage at 18:05 at which point the band changeover ensued. While I was directing the stage crew in setting up the equipment I heard a series of load pops, followed by more sporadic louder pops. I scan the darkening skies, thunder I thought to myself, I hope it does not rain. It was at this point that I heard Blood shout out "Oh no!" I went over to see what the problem was and he told me that the power to the sampler had gone. I checked the power connections and the sampler came back up, but the zip drive remained, well, dead. I checked the power supply to the drive and it became apparent by the smell that it had blown. No problem I thought I will just open it up and change the internal fuse. After finally getting a screwdriver from a member of the stage crew and unscrewing the 3 self tapping screws, only to realise that there was no internal fuse and the power supply was well and truly kentuckied (fried)! So we now have no sampler and we are missing a keyboard player. The loud pops I had heard were not distant thunder they were the on stage power tripping out, yer, like it was on acid. They say that trouble comes in threes, so what else was going to go wrong? "Wey de ras" I look over to where that exclamation emanated to see Emmanuel scouring the stage floor. No he had not taken up a new role as a stage cleaner to supplement his meagre earnings as a musician. I made my way over to him and enquired as to the problem. He showed me his guitar which was fine except that the rear strap button over which the guitar strap hooks over was no longer there. "The ting was there last night at rehearsals when I packed the guitar away" he tells me. Well it certainly was not there now. One man with keyboard confirmed missing. One Zip drive power supply now longer in the land of the functioning, awaiting its collection by Colonel Sanders and now one guitar with a missing strap button. "Don't let problems get you down. They will put you inna hole"…H.Andy.

I assisted in looking for the missing strap button, but it couldn't be found. So I thought for a few moments and remembered that the drink tokens I had been given when I arrived were round hard plastic of approx 2.5cm in diameter. I asked the stage crew if they had any screws and from the selection they showed me I chose the one that looked about right. Then to the astounded gaze of the assembled I took my lighter and started to heat the middle of the plastic token. Then with the sharp point of the screwdriver I pierced a small hole through it just slightly smaller than the diameter of the screw. I then screwed the screw into the plastic token and then screwed the assembly into the hole left by the missing strap button. Viola, The strap now had a very secure anchoring point. Job done! The look of surprise and then the one of admiration among the assembled made me smile. Emmanuel was overjoyed that his beloved guitar was now serviceable. I was relieved that I had fixed at least one of the three problems.

As we had one man with keyboard confirmed missing, Cyrus was now going to play all four keyboards. This was going to be interesting. Playing the bubble, melodies, incidentals and stabs is not easy when you have two players splitting the tasks, but when you have only one. We were going to find out just how good, or bad an ivory tinkler, Cyrus was…..Hmmm! The band now rigged, patched up as well as could be expected in the circumstances, the band left the stage to get dress for the show.

The band took to the stage and started off with 'We are The Shanti-Ites' and started brick by brick to teardown de place. Blood was smiling as he heard Emmanuel and Jahmel sing the harmonies. No samples yuh see, strictly organic. Cyrus was doing a sterling job with the keyboards. Emmanuel was confident in his make shift guitar strap button and was dancing. Not something you would do if you were worried that your prize instrument was about to crash to the floor at any moment. Conqueror was making sure the on stage sound was tight. I then went to check on Fuzzy at the FOH mixer. I listened to the sound and made a few slight adjustments and everything was right. Treble was ringing like a bell and a bass thundering down the road. I then made my way back to the stage area taking pictures as I went and making sure I hailed up Samri and associates who were in the crowd.

Emmanuel Joseph did his two numbers in the shortened set, 'Open Road' and 'Youth man'. The set was finished off by Blood singing 'Teardown Babylon', a long time classic from the Falasha stable and then it was time to bring on Tenna to do his set. The band raised up a storm as Tenna went through his set. 50 minutes later the last strains of echo are heard as the band leaves the stage.There was much congratulations going on backstage from the other acts as well as between ourselves. In the face of extreme adversity we as a unit, had triumphed! True craftsmen don't blame the lack of tools for not doing a job. They use what is available to get the job done. Who Jah Bless no man curse!

Just a little story from the backstage; I had put fish on our rider because some members of our crew don't eat meat. No bones, feathers or blood inna dem kitchen. So when we had finished our sets I asked the caterers for the fish I had requested and they gave me a large piece of raw salmon fillet. This I set about seasoning and ting, yuh see. The cook was looking intently at what I was doing. I sprinkled the fish fillet liberally with olive oil, black pepper and some onion. I then quadrupled wrapped the fish in foil with some garlic butter and placed the package on the barbecue to cook. Nuff artiste came and took the chicken and lamb as our fish was cooking. After 30 minutes I removed the parcel to set about dividing the contents among those of our crew that required it. When I unwrapped the parcel the fish was well and truly blessed and from all corners a biblical plague of locusts descended. Not really locusts, but man and man from the other bands wanting piece of our fish. I shared out our crew and gave some to members of the Twinkle Brothers, Barry, Dub Judah and Norman, who were hankering for some, saving just a lickle piece for myself. So after our crew were given their portion what was left was shared as far as it would go. This was not the feeding of the 5000! But see yah, just as I was sharing out the one lickle piece of fish a female of ethnic origins tried to banduloo up de place and rush come to grab the likkle piece. Me, I am not the nicest of people when liberties are being taken of me and so I stopped her fork in mid air as it tried to stab up the fish and asked her what she was doing? She said she wanted some of the fish….Well den dear reader what do you think your reaction would be after you have specifically requested the fish for you crew. The raw fish is provided for you. You prepare and season up de fish and then you cook it. "What fish" I asked her? "That fish" she replied. "You cook any fish here" I continued? She looked at me and then pointed to the caterers and said "The fish that they cooked"! Well I had to inform her that they, the caterers had not cooked any fish and that I had in fact cooked it and if she wanted the fish that they had cooked she had better go ask them fi it. She chuckled as if to say You can cook any fish? I called the caterers over who duly explained to said female that I had indeed not only specified it on my rider, I had also cooked the fish and NO ONE else had fish, raw or otherwise, on their rider. I then put some fish pon my plate and gave the little piece left to Cyrus as he had finished his original piece. Fish done. She walked away crest fallen and with no fish! Yuh see, a child inherits from his parents. Me, I inherited my father's humility as well as his skill as a cook. My godfather told me that my father could cook a plate ah food so nice, that man would even eat the plate too rahtid, it was so good. But also I inherited my mother's attitude, some might call it temper. You provoked my mother at your peril. She was likkle but she was tallawah. Nice to see that my son has inherited these very same traits. Anyway Raspects to the Irie Vibes Crew, Twinkle Dem, Natural, Samri, Nicole, Ras Iyah, Rej and to all performers and patrons of the festival. Special thanks to our hosts (Filip's parents) who made our stay at their home very comfortable…………..Big Up!

One Love
                The Humble Lion  

Dour Festival 2011 / Homepage

 

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