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Saturday night saw myself and my brother Joe go to 'Reggae on the beach' 2014; an event which the people of Tobago had been raving about and apparently looking forward to all year round. The location it was held at was a place called pigeon point, a very beautiful, calm beach with turquoise crystal waters. Four of us had arrived earlier in the day to check it out and it really is amazing. Photos of the place don't do it justice. The only thing that upsets the tranquility of it were the touters coming around trying to get you to go on their tours or, in the case of one fella, Michael, persistently trying to chat you up and come on to you in the least subtlest way possible, despite letting him know that I'm standing there with my two brothers...who were no help anyway. True, as far as they were concerned he probably would have taken both of them on, but never mind.
So! Reggae on the beach. Joe and I were feeling pretty tired before we left but we had a few beers in the hotel bar and we left just before 1am (so pretty late) and when we arrived people were also just turning up. The whole thing seemed very chilled. It's not like festivals in the UK at all, with massive queues to get in or to get drinks or with crowds so densely packed you can't move. No, it was much more spacious than that.
Once we were in I didn't feel like it was such a party place, as so many people had made out. Joe and I got a drink first from the drinks tent and then headed into the crowd.
There were a few things I found a little odd about this event. The atmosphere was fairly strange, everyone just stood there (we had been told by the lovely fella early that everyone would be dancing like crazy) and no one even seemed to smile let alone talk with each other. They obviously were just quietly thinking to themselves 'I've been waiting for this all year.' As we walked through all the people some had put their drinks bottles on the sand but it was impossible to discern the full bottles from the empty ones all over the floor so we accidentally knocked one over which caused one guy to get very angry indeed. Peace and love for everyone!
We got close to the front and watched for a while and we danced while no one else did, and we laughed while no one else did that either...
An MC came on the stage who was from Jamaica. Again I must learn something about the culture based on what he was saying to please the crowd.
He was saying things like "I arrived today and I told my taxi driver 'I want to eat like the people of Tobago. I want to lime like the people of Tobago.' And I asked 'what do the people of Tobago eat?' And he said 'crab and dumplings.' But you know, I don't really like crab. So everybody! Put your hands up if you like crab and dumplings!" ...I've never seen a bigger reaction from people over crab and dumplings with one woman behind proclaiming yes, yes she really does love crab and dumplings. A few other things he got to ask were 'put your hands up if you've never cheated on your partner, put your hands up if you love god.'
So I'm guessing they're a religious and fairly traditional bunch.
The MC announced the next act who, as he put it was a guy who has been honest and put his hands up that he's cheated before but he prays to god that he won't do it again. Christopher Martin everyone! (How's that for an introduction?)
Christopher Martin is a big deal in the reggae world. I recognized a few songs, and yeah, he was a great performer. But still there is this definite theme about cheating. With hit songs that had lyrics such as "don't let me cheat on my girlfriend, don't let me cheat on my boyfriend."
A lot of the songs seemed to be about girls who are so pretty but no! They won't cheat on their girlfriend still.
Anyway, the music was really very good, they had a full band on the stage. And now we know the formula to writing a good reggae song! Joe and I even had the pleasure of having two people come up and start grinding with us. It was funnier seeing Joe with his gal as he was so slight next to her while she rubbed her booty all up against him. They still looked very serious though, so I'm thinking maybe that's just how they have fun. Or 'lime' is the expression here I believe.
This morning when we were back at pigeon point a guy chatted with us and we told him about the funny atmosphere at the reggae party. He told us that here reggae is for chilling out, if you want to dance then you go somewhere with more steel drums and such. So now we know!
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