Rocky Dawuni thrills at La Beach

By now, somewhere around the world, people will be enjoying the BBC’s rebroadcast of Rocky Dawuni’s independence concert and whoever they are they will certainly find it impressive. Rocky’s show had something to it this year and it wasn’t just the crowd that ate up every inch of the Atlantic shoreline to catch the reggae icon’s star-studded line up. The organizers were really smart with the tickets, pegging the prize at 20,000 cedis per head. The roll over effect was that it looked like the whole of Accra had come to pitch camp at the La pleasure beach for a generous dose of new school reggae and Hiplife.

Samini worked the crowd enough to set the pace for Rocky’s appearance. The difference was that they played to a large hard-core fan base and it told on the energy that came off the stage and how the crowd responded. King Ayisoba is a sure winner any day. He has created room for a genre that was largely obscured to thrive on mainstream outlets that traditionally didn’t support his music. He had an inspiring call and response bout with the hyperactive crowd before his Kologo set the concert ablaze.

When Rocky came on, the crowd had swollen so much that half the people had to stand in the water to get a peek at him. What everybody found strange was that, he came on holding hands with World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and to sections of the crowd it was such a deflating moment. Some people showed their disgust with screams of “Fire burn Babylon” and for others it was just another light moment in the concert so they didn’t really seem to mind. But mob mentality has a way of driving emotions and it wasn’t any different.

But Rocky made it all worth everyone’s while because when he started performing the crowd will just not stop screaming. There was something really different about his act and certainly; March 6th 2007 independence concert will go down as the greatest of Rocky’s annual jams.

Tic Tak has never had a reputation as a live performer; if anything he was just another MC who mimed for his audience because he could get away with it. But last Tuesday Tic shocked everybody with an almost show stopping performance. He was the last act on the bill and made it look like he had a point to prove. All said and done the concert was well put together and great by all standards. Maybe event strategist needs to start looking at cheap tickets for shows; it really does make a difference. If it’s not an exaggeration, that shoreline had at least a million people.