One Love Cali Reggae Festival (Day 3)–By The Minute Review
Queen Mary Events Park
Feb. 10
2:00 pm The Green, performing on the KOI Stage, commanded an enormous crowd of thrilled partiers. At this early in the day, the number of people mobbed around the outer-barrier (where the general admission folks were kept) as well as the crowd mobbed around the stage, could have qualified for the audience for a headlining band.
2:30 pm Enter the rain. It was gentle at first, but then it came hard. Some people were oblivious to the weather reports, and others had come equipped with raincoats. Umbrellas were prohibited.
3:15 pm Sweeping crews were deployed to shove large puddles of water toward drains. Many of the puddles looked like mini-lakes. Some areas of the grounds had been covered with astroturf or similar fabric, but those that weren’t became slippery mud-zones.
3:30 pm Morgan Heritage’s performance on the SMKFWR Stage started a bit late, presumably because of the downpour. The crowd was diminished from the crowd that had initially been waiting for their set to begin, as many people sought shelter. Those that remained were swilling beer, smoking up, and loving it all!
4:00 pm Witnessed: a girl was wearing garbage bags over her fuzzy go-go boots to keep them dry. The idea that much of the colorful garb of the audience, in general, was now shrouded in blue, red, yellow, and clear raincoats and ponchos definitely dampened the spirit of the place — no pun intended.
4:05 pm Anuhea’s pop / reggae style and sunny attitude were definitely uplifting. The clouds even parted a bit during her set, allowing a few rays to beam down onto her adoring fans.
4:15 pm Every time I left the tunnel, it started raining again. The stop and go was frustrating, but no one’s spirit seemed to be totally broken by it. Everyone was making the best out of an uncomfortable situation.
4:20 pm This is the first time I’ve ever seen an underground, concrete tunnel get hot-boxed. From one end to the other, folks were leaning against the walls and smoking up in little circles. Auspicious timing for the observation.
4:50 pm J-Boog’s wildly anticipated set cranked out some hard good vibes. Before J-Boog, himself, joined his band, his saxophone player was riffing on some familiar tune that no one could help me identify. It’s still driving me nuts.
5:00 pm Saw a girl wearing a blue raincoat filling her blue water bottle at the water station, in the rain. Oh, the irony. #poetry
6:30 pm The shuttle ride back to the parking area was full of cold, wet, and non-chatty people. One inspiring bit of dialogue that I heard as people shuffled back into the massive parking lot was, “I could really use some ramen about now.” I heartily agreed.
Last year was extremely muddy as it had rained the day before. The high point of the show was when Burning Spear urged us to “End Apartheid in South Africa” and I was like “Yeah, we should do that” (??)
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