Last night saw the launch of the countdown to the 25th edition of Europe’s biggest Reggae festival, starting in exactly 10 weeks time. The organisors of Rototom Sunsplash chose to bring nobody less but the legendary Roots Reggae group Israel Vibration onto the stage of Barcelona’s prominent night club Sala Apolo to headline their Launch Party in Catalonia.
Backed by the authentic Roots Radics band featuring next to all the original members on strings, namely, Errol „Flabba“ Holt on bass, Dwight Pinkey on guitar and Steve Golding on rhythm guitar, also the additions Horace James and TeeBird Jamaka on keys, Shawn Patrick Anderson on drums and the beautiful background singer Bunny Brissett, the legendary singers Cecil “Skelly” Spence and Lascelle “Wiss” Bulgin performed a variety of songs from their various albums ranging from Stamina’s Black Staba and back through to The Same Song from the same-titled debut album of the 1970s.
Specifically that 1970s breakthrough song was chosen by Skelly and Wiss to be their encore for the night. Unlike the other tunes of the evening which were introduced in Kingston-styled Patois, the duo introduced their hit song with the words „muy bien, gracias“ (very good, give thanks). And in a same Spanish way, this encore then just became the penultime song of the evening as the crowd succeeded to have Skelly and Wiss perform another Reggae classic just before leaving the stage for good.
If you wanna read this in Spanish, head to Reggae.es.
Text and fotos: Ilona “ilo” Kepic
