Ruminations: "Best of Tuesday Nite Live" was the best

Last updated: Thursday, February 12, 2009, 11:16 AM EST

'Best Of Tuesday Night Live' was the best

By Darren Khan Observer Entertainment writer
Sunday, December 24, 2006

Katherine sang like an angel, Cezar defied description, the Ray Darwin Band, Cusser & the Storm Band, GasMoney and Rootz Underground absolutely rocked on Tuesday night at the Village Café, Liguanea, St Andrew.

Singer Katherine in previous TNL performance

The event was the 50th weekly staging of Tuesday Night Live, designated the Best Of Tuesday Night Live. Katherine, newly shorn, curled and blonde locks sparkling and guitar in hand, kicked off the event. With Jason Wharton on the flute and Craig 'Phlea' Lee on the drums, she sang Pins'n' Needles, Feel The Burn and Pain Won't Go Away. To say she was stunning would be putting it mildly. Performance poet Ganja put in a cameo with Katherine before soloing and sparkling.

It was a night when everyone was on the top of their game. The GasMoney quintet of Fabian Pinkney on lead vocals, Vernon DaCosta on rhythm guitar, Akiri Cooper on drums, Andre Dennis on bass and guest lead guitarist Hamilton Brown of the band Anthirium rocked through a cover of Incubus' Megalomaniac and three originals: Dead Inside, Drift Away and Wooden Doll. Fabian has a voice many would kill to possess and he used it well, and the other band members played like there was no tomorrow.

Cezar did One Way Love, Beautiful, Take The Fall and Keep On and if the screams from the ladies present was any indication, he closed out the year with a bang. Ray Darwin and his band performed like the stars they are and had everyone screaming for more. Cusser & The Storm Band did their unique - for Jamaica at least - brand of punk rock and had practically everyone pointing their first and fourth fingers to the sky.

Rootz Underground defies description. Clearly on the top of their game, their blend of blues, rock and roots reggae put the audience into a frenzy. Stephen Newland on lead vocals, Jeffrey Moss-Solomon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Colin Young on bass, Paul 'Scooby' Smith on keyboards and Charles Lazarus on lead guitar went through Smile Jamaica, Soul 2 Soul, Riverstone, a cover of The Cure's Love Song, Love Again, Victims, Corners and another cover, Midnite's Late Night Ghetto and they could do no wrong.

Tuesday Night Live (TNL) is the brainchild of Village's Robert Collins and Mystic Urchin's Cherie Dowdie (who is leaving the island to attend school) with inspiration from Bobby Barnes of Cusser & the Storm Band, and its Internet presence can be found at http://www.myspace.com/tuesdaynitelive. Dowdie, who took an active part in TNL for the last time on Tuesday, says "Tuesday Nite Live came from Tuesdays In Stereo, which we were doing last year, it was a great event and we were very proud of it... but because it was an 'event' we couldn't sustain it.

"So we did it for three months and called it quits... I'd always wanted to restart it but I couldn't seem to get anyone behind me. When I was just about to give up Robert (Collins) called us and said 'Hey, let's do Tuesdays In Stereo again' and I said 'But Robert we don't have any support, I don't see how we'll be able to do it'. He said 'Well... you don't need any. Just do it'.
"So we did.

"Now... left to my own devices, I wanted to create a show that was about the music. Not about the hype of where to go this Tuesday night. I wanted to create a platform for musicians who wanted to be heard but weren't getting any airtime in the mainstream, and for people who wanted to hear something different than mainstream music. I feel really great because I think we've actually succeeded in doing that.

"The highest points of TNL for me was at the end of the night when the people who knew I was the one who was pulling it all together would come to me and say, 'I love what you're doing here, or when the band members would say, I'm really happy someone is doing this.' Low points...when we weren't making enough money.and at the end of the night I had to look at an artiste who'd gone through so much effort and expense... and say, 'I'm sorry, I don't have enough money to pay you.'"

Cherie Dowdie's 'duties', as it were, are being taken over by independent marketing consultant Julia Vaz, who has big plans for the future of Tuesday Nite Live. Apart from continuing to provide a platform for those who wish to break into the entertainment business and expose their talent, she says Mystic Urchin and Village Tube - the production/cable television arm of the Village Café involved with Tuesday Nite Live, which will air the performances - want to establish a 'performance space' for artistes and hopefuls.

According to her, ". artistes will have somewhere to rehearse and practice, and in return they could teach. people who want to learn (how to play instruments, sing, various aspects of the entertainment business etc)."

"Ultimately," she continued, "it is our hope to use TNL to bond together the community of musicians and lovers of live music."
There are also other plans which will have to be fleshed out she says, but one is teaching acts how to get by in the business and about the tools they will need, such as ready biographies, sample CDs and the like.

One thing that Julia Vaz says she would like to change is the time the show starts each Tuesday night. Currently, the live performances start at around 11pm - which is when patrons actually start arriving, in keeping with one of the peculiarities of Jamaicans when it comes to entertainment. They would like to start earlier and so appeal to lovers of live music to turn out earlier.