Beenie Man Rescues Show From Hitches And Glitches

Beenie Man It took the performance of Jamaican dance hall king, Beenie Man to light up the first ever concert to be organized by Accra-based radio station Citi FM.

Before Beenie Man mounted the stage, it looked as if there was not going to be an end to the hitches and glitches that the audience at the Accra International Conference Centre were experiencing.

The first problem to hit the concert was the unusually late start. It was scheduled to begin at 8.00 pm, but when Nii Amah Dagadu introduced the emcees for the programme to commence, it was 10.25 pm.

The organizers? problems were aggravated when the electrical and sound equipment chose to act funny the whole night. A message by the Managing Director of Citi FM, Samuel Atta Mensah, could not be heard when it was shown on the screens; the microphones and the lights went off occasionally, the smoke effects were not playing well, etc ,as artistes was performed.

Batman, one of the local artistes who performed on the night, could not have the CD of his song Linda played so that he could perform along with it and so he resorted to an improvised free-style.

Obviously frustrated by that incident, Batman blamed the organizers for not allowing him to play with the band as he had requested. He did that so that the angry audience would know where to direct their anger.

Another big blunder that many of the people in the audience were disappointed about was the absence of Nigerian hip-hop and R&B star, 2Face Idibia.

The various adverts and promos on the concert had asserted that he would perform alongside Beenie Man and some local musicians. He did not show up!

In spite of this catalogue of problems, the main event, Beenie Man?s performance, was a real cracker. The man did show why he is touted to be the leading dancehall performer in Jamaica. He stole the show.

Right from the beginning when he arrived on stage in brown top and trousers with red, yellow and green spots all over, as well as red footwear to match, Beenie Man indicated that he was in to rock the audience.

When he got on stage, everybody in the audience stood up and many rushed towards the stage. The security tried to prevent them from going forward but Beenie Man forbade them. He said they should be allowed to come forward so long as they would not mount the stage.

So it went throughout the one-and-half hours or so that he performed; the crowd inched forward as some took shots of him with their camera phones while others sang and danced along with him.

He occasionally held hands with them as he performed one popular song after another from his repertoire and some not known by many in the audience.

The concert also featured some highly-rated local artistes like VIP, Tinny, Okomfo Kwaadee, Buk Bak, 4x4, Slim Busterr, Lord Kenya, Batman and Castro.

Castro proved to the audience why he is considered the hottest hiplife artiste at the moment when he performed two of his songs and got most people in the audience on their feet.

Okomfo Kwaadee, Slim Busterr and VIP also had good shows while Lord Kenya showed that he was not as washed out as some think. But he could not get the crowd to respond to his performance as they used to in the past.

One wonders how much the organizers would pay Tinny for coming on stage only to ask the crowd what his name was. He wasted his time and that of the audience.

Considering that the second show scheduled for the Ohene Gyan Sports Stadium on Saturday did not come off, one would like to entreat Citi FM to tread cautiously in their desire to organize big shows. Let?s face it; the station lacks the capacity to do so at this moment.