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Plymouth Jazz Festival 2007 ... Day 2
Date: Saturday 28th April 2007
Location: Plymouth Recreation Grounds. Tobago
Promotions: CL Communications in collaboration w/ Tobago House of Assembly & The LaRoda Group
Click on thumbnails to see the big picture/entire gallery

Tobago Jazz Fest Chronicles Pt. 2

After the TJJ Red Team left the Consortium's "Welcome to Jazz Weekend" after party on Friday night, we linked up some more frens of the Jungle for the after party lime. Before we knew it, the sun was coming up and with less than a couple of hours sleep, it was time to make movements to the airport, but we needed to handle some business first. Yes, a quick stop at Store Bay for a dip and some good ole Tobago lunch... can't reach Tobago and not enjoy some Curry Crab & Dumplin!! This was the end of the Jazz festivities for some of the TJJ team as we boarded an empty Caribbean Airlines jet (we think it was the 737-800 series jet) Trini bound. No one would believe us when we say were were the ONLY two passengers on board the flight besides the pilot, who jokingly asked the flight attendants to get the two idiots off his plane!! We snapped a couple of pics with de camera phone (click here to view) for you who still think we talking nonsense. Okay, we off to a wedding in Trini. Back over to the TJJ Blue Team reporting live from Plymouth Recreation Grounds.

Hmmm............. night two of the Plymouth Jazz Festival'07 seemed to be LADIES NIGHT!

All patrons came early to hear their favorite hits from their favorite artists, and they surely came to get their money’s worth from each performer as well. TJJ's coverage started off with TnT's very own Destra Garcia & Atlantik, who performed for her scheduled time of one hour. The Soca queen came out looking sexy, blowing the minds of the guys present. Her time on stage set the tone for what we expected of each performer after her.... that is, to give a performance as long and as energetic as Destra did. Things were off to a good start.

Afterwards, Jamaica’s reggae veteran Beres Hammond serenaded the ladies with his smooth voice. He had everyone singing along and dancing. This is where the men in the crowd had a nice time too because the ladies couldn’t dance by themselves could they? ;-) "Remember The Songs, Used To Make You Rock Away ... Those Were The Days ... When Love Used To Reign, Hey"

Next up, the energetic Heather Headly, dressed sexy but simple graced us with her presence. This talented hometown girl didn’t see Trinidad or Tobago in many years - since childhood - and she sang and danced her heart out on stage enjoying her time home. Heather was intimate with the crowd singing her hits like "In My Mind" and "I Wish I Wasn't". She surely sang as though she owed us her best, as though she wanted to make sure we were indeed satisfied with what she brought. The Plymouth crowd enjoyed her performance as she prepared us for the legends, like the more than famous Gladys Knight (who continues to blossom in beauty as time goes by). Oh the crowd loved Knight! She herself had a blast taking folks down memory lane touching on some of her classics. It was a lot of fun looking at how the older audience reacted to some of her songs; jumping and carrying on with each other.

After midnight, the diva of all divas, Diana Ross made a grand entrance on stage wearing a red gown with a huge frilled frock wrapped around both arms, and of course was warmly welcomed by everyone. "I'm coming out ... I want the world to know ... Got to let it show ... I'm coming out ... I want the world to know ... I got to let it show." Lord knows, most people couldn’t wait to not only hear her voice but to even get a glimpse of the diva. After singing about four songs, she even disappeared for a moment and came back on stage in a different outfit (an extremely sexy, glamorous, silver & white gown). When again could we have such a star sing to us in our lil' paradise island?? Well, besides Elton John scheduled to perform the next day! Hehe. But glamorous Diana Ross... wow! That was a moment we'll always remember! To everyone's dismay, she was cut short by the organizers because of time constraints. HUH? Ms. Ross didn’t sing for more than let's say 20 mins. Fans were extremely disappointed. One jazz fan told us, “Why have Destra sing for an hour when we can hear her all year?” Based on interviews with the crowd most of the audience were Caribbean based, and the feedback was pretty much the same... "We could see our local artists anytime, and if time was an issue and we’re paying loads of cash to hear super stars like Gladys Knight, Diana Ross and Mary J. Blige; cut the local artists short! Or giveaway their cds in the crowd while Diana’s on stage or something!" Diana Ross was still GREAT ... cut short or not!

R&B star Mary J. Blige closed off day two of the three day festival. That woman’s powerful voice could be beautifully heard from a distance. She sang and we sang with her... belting out all time classics like "Real Love", "Be Without You" and "Family Affair". Most of the older crowd started to leave right after Diana's performance, but the younger audience could definitely identify with Mary’s tunes since she was one of the most modern singers that night.

Now, the downfall of the night would be the shuttle service or shall we say, lack of! Apparently the organizers weren't ensuring that the shuttle drivers were doing what they’re suppose to - we're hoping there were some kind of guidelines in place. A BIG let down!! Here’s what went on... at the end of Saturday's show, most shuttles departed with passengers that left the show early. Instead of leaving some people to wait around the shuttle pickup point outside the show, the guards/police officers directed all people traffic to walk down the streets to have less of a crowd waiting at the shuttle pickup point. Who ordered them to make such a stupid decision? The drivers then picked up people from different locations in the area, totally ignoring that some people still decided to follow instructions and wait where they were suppose to at the shuttle pickup point! Some people had to walk 3 quarts of the way back to the car parks till they were picked up. Some didn’t even bother to rush and push for a shuttle and decided to continue walking until they got to their vehicles, or in some cases, their hotels. Yikes! It was unacceptable. Hopefully everyone made it to their destinations safely. Humph! We can laugh at this now because we got through it, but we're hoping the organizers better monitor the return shuttle service next year.

All in all, not getting a shuttle didn’t stop us from feeling nice when we remembered how Diana Ross told us she loved us, or from how Beres Hammond sang real songs we knew and loved, or how Heather Headly almost cried singing to us. It didn’t stop us from reminiscing about how much fun we had dancing to Gladys Knight's music, or from the reality that Mary J. was about 6 feet from us. See you guys tomorrow evening.

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Related Galleries
Plymouth Jazz Festival 2007 ... Day 1
Plymouth Jazz Festival 2007 ... Day 3