Last Tuesday the Wailers were in our country again. You know, the former accompanying band of late Bob Marley, or at least, what is left of it. There wasn't a better moment to have them over here, just a couple of days after Bob's birthday. That's probably what the people of Democrazy thought too, and the Wailers still attract huge crowds anyway. And that is how it got crowded in the Vooruit in Gent, and the atmosphere was right from the start.
Even though there were only two original members left and the Wailers have in the meantime become an elevated cover band, a couple of hundred enthusiast spectators were prepared to pay 22€, something we did not understand at all. Fortunately national quality was to be admired with One Root and Unlisted Fanatic alongside Saimn I and Collieman.
The 'One Root' Brusselians, the former Sunrockers (in 2012 final winner of the Benelux Reggae Contest) started off with a couple of catchy, classic riddims, 'Swing Easy' and 'Rockfort Rock', where the spotlight was immediately drawn to the prominence of the wind instruments and the musicians dubbed greatly before starting their own 'Run run run'. In 2013 they released the EP 'Revelation', from which we heard 'Time Bomb' and 'This world' among others, in addition to an own interpretation of Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves'.
Clearly inspired by renowned examples such as The Congos and The Abyssinians, One Root is without a doubt an extremely solid roots band, but they didn't manage to keep hold of the crowd's attention. Everyone was by then waiting in excitement for the main act of the evening, which kept us waiting for quite some time.
Since the brothers Barrett disappeared (drum and bass), there's no one left of the so-called 'Original' Wailers but for lead guitarist Al Anderson and keyboard player Tyrone Downie, who have their best days behind them. The concept has been milked so much the past decades that Bob would probably turn around in his grave. And now a new lead singer was introduced, a role that had long time been taken up by Junior Marvin (not to be confused with the recently deceased Junior Murvin), but no matter how hard the current frontman tried, naturally, he got nowhere near the voice of Marley or one of his sons.
No further wind instruments or backing vocals to take the place of the I Trees. I saw the Wailers once, when Aston 'Family man' was still a part of them, a little bit down the road (when Polé Polé festival was still held there, imagine that) and then they managed to please us a lot more, but back then that was one of my first reggae concerts ever, together with my older brother and Bramma of Groovestation, about 14 years ago. Now I've seen it all.
As expected we got to hear pretty much all the songs from the tribute album Legend, sold an uncountable amount of times worldwide, with successively 'I shot the sherrif', 'Get up stand up' (including the known Q&A game whoyoo whoyoyoyoo), 'Stir it up', 'Three little birds', 'Is this love?', etc. Every single one nostalgic sing along songs, but the band didn't impress much so far. With 'Jammin'' they managed to get us in a dancing mood, a drawn-out version in which all band members got to solo, in the front of course oldies Al Anderson and Tyrone Downie, but the young bass player, too, suddenly successfully impressed us.
One Root's singer had warmed us up for what was coming with the quote "Rasta no work for no CIA", but the Wailers did not perform 'Rat Race', and the singer also avoided songs such as 'War/No more trouble', which had to have been highlights back then. At the end he did have the courage to bring 'Redemption song', but he left it mainly to the crowd to take over, as a predictable closer to this soon to forget commemoration concert.
'No woman no cry' – a song that suited wonderfully to Bob – wasn't necessary for us either, which is definitely the case for the brand new tunes too. The Wailers are indeed still working on new material, trying to get rid of the cover band image, but from the crowd's reactions it seemed nobody was really waiting for that. We wanted to hear Classics, and again we perfectly got what we wanted with the inevitable 'One Love', sung by the crowd at the top of their voices, followed by 'Exodus', together with 'Jaimmin' the best and most lively version of the evening.
As a support act DJ Unlisted Fanatic kept to a strictly roots set, and barely stepped outside the box, which we usually expect them to do. The anticipated part of own productions was left out, but there was a short, yet brilliant live showcase of Saimn I and Collieman, who presented their newest release hand in hand: 'Party time' to the Stranger riddim, the very first production of the Pirates crew from Gent, played by the local ska band The Nice Guys. For the couple dozen that stuck around this was possibly the best moment of the night..
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