There are often times when I dislike the smoking ban. Tonight was one such. A few years ago, a gig such as this would have been awash with marijuana smoke and that was as it should be. At a guess I'd suggest the crowd, who range from 16 to 60, or older, and seem thoroughly disparate, all have one thing in common: that they enjoy the odd toke.
Such feelings are only accentuated when On-U Sound production don Adrian Sherwood introduces the night with a brief DJ set that fires up the mood with booming reggae pearls such Jeb Loy Nichols's "To be Rich (Should be Crime)" and Peter Tosh's "Babylon Queendom", all on a sound system that's been especially enhanced for the occasion.
Even without the pungent aroma of weed permeating the air, the crowd is skanking and lolling their bodies hither and thither from the off. Tonight's line-up is reggae royalty and there's a palpable sense of anticipation. The house band for the evening then arrives on stage - guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, trumpet, saxophone - a cosmopolitan mixture of black and white, Rastafarian and non-Rastafarian, male and female. The lead guitarist with his dreadlocks piled into a crown on his head, warmed up the band with a quick instrumental then welcomed Max Romeo on stage.
Romeo first came to prominence at the end of the Sixties with a series of jovially smutty, suggestive singles such as "Wet Dream" and the wonderfully titled "Wine her Goosie", but it was his politically charged Rastafarian output in the mid-Seventies, produced by Lee "Scratch" Perry, that really put him on the map. A slight figure, he arrives on stage in a loose orange beach-suit ensemble, his face and beard a fuzz of white hair and dreadlocks down to his bum.
His brand of reggae is euphoric, poppy, energetic and often has lyrical bite. There are plenty of odes to Jah, lots of religious imagery along the lines of "Back to the Bible, one and all/ Satan kingdom about to fall", but like the best gospel, it doesn't come over as evangelically preachy, more blissfully upbeat. Also, it's constantly counterbalanced by songs such as "Stealing in the Name of Jah" and "Time Bomb", which have a driven political edge.
As the set progresses it becomes clear something a bit special is going on, there is a sense of spirited urgency about Romeo and we're all dragged off somewhere ecstatic by his music. By the time he reaches classics such as "One Step Forward" and "Fire Ina Babylon" the whole place is truly abuzz, which means that when he hits us with "I Chase the Devil" the roof lifts off. This 1976 song, repudiating Satan and his works, is a reggae classic, but ever since The Prodigy sampled it to glorious effect for their set staple "Out of Space" it's entered a whole other league of fame. Thus, when Romeo blasts through it, his voice is almost drowned out by the audience roaring along. It sends shivers up my spine and puts water in my eye. For an encore he returns for a ska medley that causes outbreaks of wild dancing, leaving us all feeling the better for his presence.
Lee "Scratch" Perry is a different kettle of fish entirely. He is rightly renowned for being a seminal figure in Jamaican music due to his breakthough early work with Bob Marley and The Wailers, his extraordinarily fertile Black Ark Studio productions during the Seventies and, of course, the fact that he pretty much invented dub music. He is also famously nutty. At 75, he could retire and feel happy with his achievements but instead continues to deliver occasional wayward stage performances. I last saw him a decade ago and, to be frank, it was a waste of time. Hired session men plodded away while he rambled on and then, presumably, collected a pay check. He was better this time but is still a perverse and tricksy performer.
Clad in a brocade jacket, his beard and hair dyed bright pink, wearing a baseball cap encrusted with all manner of shiny objects and a large mirror on a chain round his neck, he's a sight to see. Between tracks he spouts insane rhyming doggeral that's usually both infantile and bizarre - "You're in a very good mood/ Because you're eating very good food", or telling us his shoes are holy, and so on. The band very much carries him and he rewards them by being contrary. He insists the guitarist "free his locks" before they play "Curly Locks" (he does so and they reach his ankles - the longest hair I've ever seen). At one point late in the set he appears to give the female backing singer an opening and then rudely tells her not to sing. She walks out. He moans that the Marley estate don't give him enough credit and plays almost unrecognisable versions of "Sun is Shining" and "Duppy Conqueror". He keeps speeding the pace up and down on a whim.
Like Suicide or the Television Personalities, he appears unable to relax into performance and seems to want to wilfully undermine and deconstruct the process. He extends one song for ages, just telling us repeatedly, "I'm a flying fish", over and over again. Happily Adrian Sherwood (pictured right) is on the sound desk and brilliantly creates explosive echoing sound effects and gigantic bass noise in the traditions of the best dub. He saves the day and Perry, busy enunciating the Lord's Prayer and such wanders out of view, mic in hand and back in again. He concludes with "Fire", taking time to gladhand the crowd briefly and then he's off. The guitarist then gives us an incongruous a capella take on "Whisky in the Jar" and the evening is over. In the end, the idea of Lee "Scratch" Perry's mad antics is a lot more entertaining than his actual concerts - although he was alright this time - but, if you get the chance, catch Max Romeo live at the first opportunity.
Find Max Romeo Watch Max Romeo perform "I Chase the Devil" in 2008
