Dateline: 21/02/2009 Venue: Velvet Club, Lucca, Italy.
We were booked on the 08:35 from London Stansted. Well that is a misnomer. Stansted is in the county of Essex and is 40 miles (56 km,) from London. You might as well call Luton in Bedfordshire (32 miles / 51 Km from London), Gatwick in Surrey (28 miles / 40 Km from London), London, as well. Oh my mistake they do!

That explains the bewilderment of incoming foreign passengers and quite a lot of outgoing British ones as well, to these airports.

They think that they are a short 5-10 minute ride by taxi or train to the sights of London, not a 40 minute train or 1 - 2 hour car journey.
Stansted is nearer to Cambridge (25 mile/ 40 km), so why is it not called Cambridge Airport, it makes more sense?
The name 'Cambridge' does not have the allure of 'London', Sleepy backwater of dreamy spires and academia, against bright lights, big city, and temptation. The same goes for the other misnamed on purpose 'London' airports.

Well it was another night without sleep so that I could get across London, pick up Aba and get to the 'London Stansted' airport for 06:30.
Well on arriving at Stansted we went to the check in desk area to find no check in desk, only a baggage drop off desk. The 'Thiefdom of the Air' had made it all self check in.

The process was quite quick and we then went to drop off our bags. We had to rearrange the weight between the 2 bags as Aba's one was over. It was a good job mine only had a change of clothes and some toiletries.
We went through customs and the inevitable happen. The lady from customs wanted Aba to remove his Tam. Well Aba asked if they had a room they could go in to facilitate this.
She was behaving as Aba had refused to be searched and was showing signs of metaphorically pressing the panic button. This would have brought armed Police a running! I don't know about you, but having heavily armed and bored policemen draping me up is not my idea of fun. Are you listening Ras Peppa? Her colleague gestured to her to take Aba into the small room at the side and this she reluctantly did.
I gathered up my belongings that had passed through the scanner and went and waited by the far wall. I was looking toward the small room see what would transpire. Well I didn't have to wait long before the shocked female customs officer and a smiling Aba came out.
The officer resumed her post and seemed quite shaken. She kept looking towards us as Aba repacked his bags and straightened out his Tam. Aba told me that when he took off his Tam and his locks literally unravelled to the floor the officer stood there wide eyed and said
"My God, your hair is long!" It must be the same effect that Samson had on women, especially Delilah, as he had very long locks as well. As the Sunday school song says; Jah Bible tells us so.

Well the usual cattle truck scenario ensued as we waited to board the plane. Once aboard I went to sleep.

We arrived at Pisa airport and negotiated customs and immigration with no undue delay.
On entering the arrivals there was a lack of persons to meet us. The plane had landed 20 minutes early, so we hung around waiting to be picked up by the promoter Daniele.Well 10 minutes after the plane was scheduled to land, Daniel appeared.
The journey from Pisa to Lucca took us over the hills that separated Pisa from Lucca.
My Jah, there were some steep drops!
On arrival in Pisa we went and got some lunch in a restaurant that their bredrin was the chef. The food was most excellent (Bill & Ted's), especially the beef. Much kudos to the chef.
Well now we were well fed we were then taken to the hotel. The co owners of the venue we were playing in lived right next to the hotel and the lady of the house went and got our keys as we waited in their home. The lounge was a mixture of ethnic roots & culture and there were two things taking pride of place in the corner. One was a book on Rebel Roots Music and Bredda Bob and the other a large book on the history of the Rolling Stones. Gawn my rebellious people. What you didn't know that the Stones (especially Keef) are a great supporter of Roots Music. Lest you forget, Pete Tosh was signed to the Stone's label and Keef loves Bingi music and promoted a band called 'Wingless Angel', pure Bingi in de place.

Rooms taken and a time was arranged for 18:30 to collect us for the sound check. I crashed out on the bed to get some sleep to prepare for the long night ahead.
We were collected on time and taken to do the sound check.
The venue was a small club and bar called the 'Velvet Club' in the town of Lucca.
The sound check went without a hitch and then it was time for dinner.The whole of us went for the meal, the promoters and the club owners.We went back to the same restaurant we ate such a wicked meal at earlier.
The Italians love to have long meals with their family and friends and this was no exception.
21:00: The owners left before the meal was finished as they had to open the club.
22:50: We arrive back at the club and people were gathering outside waiting to enter.
The warm up DJ was running some nice tunes as we entered the club. He was playing at a moderate volume which increased when he saw us come in.
We walked through the club and into the back stage area and chilled, awaiting the appointed time for our session to start.
23:50: We left the backstage area and went and took up our positions for the start of the session.
00:00: The session started and vibes ah run. I was sitting down by the side of the stage taking pictures of the crowd and generally observing.
The music reached one and two of the bar staff who came over waving Ethiopian and Jamaican flags which they planted on the equipment.
Niceness was the order and enjoyment was the key. The session was wicked and wild.
The session was supposed to finish at 03:00, but the vibes was such that we didn't finish until 05:20. The people dem love it and Aba was enjoying himself.
The session over we went back to the hotel for a well earned rest.
The nice thing was that we could stay in the hotel rooms till we were picked up for breakfast before going to the airport. The time of the pick up was 15:30. That meant we could at least get a reasonable period of rest.
So to the promoters, the club owners, the staff and the patrons One Love for a really nice session and wicked hospitality…Jah Know!

1335: We were booked onto EZjet and so check in,boarding, take off and landing was not an issue.
1615: We were met at the airport by Fred and bredrin from the Jah Militant crew and driven to the venue to do the soundcheck.
1720: On entering the venue the set up of the system was completed and Weeda was running a few tunes. The bass was sounding ok,
but there was no definition in the mids and no spit in the tops.
So for the next 3 hours Aba and I set to debugging the system to find out what was wrong and fixing it.
The mid problem was fixed, but the tops were another ball game. The two horns and the two sets of tweeters were not working at all.
After checking and replacing leads, opening of boxes to check connections, only one of the tweeter boxes was working. The horns
and the other tweeter box had departed to a place closer to their ancestors.
 
1955: Weeda made a phone call and another pair of tops was on their way.
 
2020: The other tops arrived and they were from a Nexus pa system. So what I hear you ask? Well as they were from such a system
they are linked up by a multi core cable. They had round Amphenol connectors, not speakcon or jack or canon.
We now had the tops but no way of connecting the multi core to the output canons on the amps. The only option was to cut the
multi core and fit a canon connector.This would have rendered the multi core useless for future use! Well after a few minutes I came up with a solution, albeit with some scepticism from the Jah Militant crew, who questioned the feasibility and validity of my solution. They didn't think it was going to work.

Guess what happen? Yes my faithful, trusting, dear readers, it worked, much to the astonishment of the assembled.
But if you cut me do I not exude formulae, equations and the exposure of wires. Do I not at the same time speak in a strange tongue,
mumbling essences of which seem like incantations of long lost dark forces? After all these perceived ramblings, does the item or
situation in question not become resolved? I am after all an electronic Wiz-Hard, and I ply my trade well.

2055: The sound was now spot on and with the work done we went to get some hard earned refreshments.
We were taken to the restaurant by a member of the crew who was now living /existing in Paris. Over dinner he told us of his plans
to return to Africa. He had spent his formative years in Ghana and wished to return. This was going to be his last session before he and
his girlfriend leave.
He told us he had also been at the sessions in 1999 and then again in 2004 and they had had a profound effect on him.
 
2210: We returned to the venue. There were people arriving for the session as we moved passed them and into the hall.
Rootikal Warrior, aka Cyril, was in session and the place was slowly filling up.
Aba and I went up to the balcony to sit down and survey the runnings.
 
2220: Rootikal handed over to Weeda and with Jah Tool on the mic, the session stepped up a gear. There was a tune that Weeda
played before he played his recut of 'Mr Boss Man' (Cultural Roots). This tune had a wicked saxophone melody and the man playing
(whoever he was) sounded like a cross between Marquis, Deadly Headley and Tommy McCook. Seriously good!
Feel no way fans of Dean.
 
We had agreed to play from 2300. So at 2250 Aba and I went back down stairs to the control tower to prepare for the start of the set.
My man Weeda was in his element and asked us to postpone our set till 2330. We agreed.
2330: We are still waiting!
2345: We forced the issue and Aba starts his set. The place was ram. Hog and goat can't find no room.
Aba starts off with a tribute to two of the greatest icons in the Roots firmament, Robert Nestor Marley and Dennis Emmanuel Brown.
The place erupts.
Aba due to his cold/flu as lost his voice and it is a very feeble croaking as he tries to chat on the mic.
Aba played tune after tune and rocked the people as I wandered about taking photos and generally observing.
 
0215: The bass bins die. I don't mean one or two, they all died. We had to reroute some of the low mids to play bass and back off on
the power. I know what you are thinking? The very loud playing Aba Shanti comes to France and destroys my man tings.
Well it nah go so. It seems that the crew were aware of one of the bass bins being a bit raspy after the last session with Robert
Tribulation (WSP), but thought it would be alright on the night.
 
Point of education for all sound man /woman or man /woman wanting to build or play a sound.
Your system is only as strong as its weakest link. If a speaker is raspy it means the coil has been burnt.
It will, as in the case of this scenario, where the bass bins are linked together, destroy the other good speakers.
It will go short circuit, thereby acting as a heating element and a short right across the amps. So for the one damaged speaker in the
circuit, you blow all the others and the most likely fry or seriously damage the amp. It is not worth it!
It is better to have a reduced number of good speakers, producing quality sound then a wall of speakers producing rubbish!
Yuh Hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One particular soundman back in the day must have had an hearing impediment, cos he played with speakers where he purposely had
cut the cones away leaving just the voice coil so that he could use the speaker as a giant tweeter. Oh, the poor misinformed and misguided have been and will forever be amongst us. Protect dem oh Jah for they know not what they do!
 
0215: One particular girl came over to me and tried to ask me something, which with my rudimentary French I did not understand.
I explained in my best school boy French 'Je ne comprende pas'. Well it seems my French was as good as her English.
The next 25 minutes was spent with her gesturing to me and calling me over to try to make herself understood. She was getting very excited and I was starting to worry about my existence. She was upset!
It was not till the end when someone from the crew translated what her request was and it was granted, that she smiled at me.
She just wanted her photo taken with Aba.
 
0240: Aba played for 3 hours and then handed over to Weeda to run out the last 20 minutes or so.
 
The end of the session and another job well done.
 
People in the place; Ludo, Weeda, Cyril, Fred, Jah Tool, Benjahmin, Soul Fire, Melanie from Red Lion Sound was in the place but I did not get to see her, Cyril told me she was there.The Grenoble, Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Toulon, Provence, Toulouse posses.
Big Raspects to the travelling posse from Romainia.
NB: When we got back to London the following day we just got home before the snow whiteout the place.Jah guides and protects!
 

One Love
      The Humble Lion 

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