Sean Nero

Ex­act­ly what en­tered the mind of so­ca en­ter­tain­er Swap­pi (Mar­vin Davis) to cause him to lift up a fe­male pa­tron and toss her in­to the air re­peat­ed­ly, as part of his per­for­mance at Un­plugged Tues­day-The Sum­mer Se­ries held at Wood­ford Cafe, lo­cat­ed at the Fi­es­ta Plaza, Movi­eTowne, Wood­brook, on Ju­ly 12, is un­clear.But what­ev­er mo­ti­vat­ed his de­ci­sion it was def­i­nite that the au­di­ence did not share it.In the ex­e­cu­tion of this move-which some be­lieved was an at­tempt to in­fuse his lag­ging per­for­mance-things went hor­ri­ble wrong.

The short, white strap­less jer­sey ma­te­r­i­al dress the will­ing pa­trons wore, raised past her bel­ly but­ton re­veal­ing her de­sign­er undies. By this time Swap­pi had her back against his chest. Her feet were still off the ground.He was gy­rat­ing. But un­der the cir­cum­stances things threat­ened to get dan­ger­ous­ly hard­core as the lone item of gar­ment cov­er­ing her "pri­vate part" start­ed to shift, to go pub­lic. Pa­trons gasped.Thank­ful­ly, when things looked like they were head­ing for sure dis­as­ter, Swap­pi set her down.

No one could de­duce the ra­tio­nale be­hind Swap­pi's at­ten­tion-get­ting stunt, which caused many in at­ten­dance re­flec­tions of the raunchy Danah Al­leyne and Akon saga at an­oth­er pop­u­lar night spot four years ago.Min­utes lat­er, his (Swap­pi's) man­ag­er Mar­lon Grant told the T&T Guardian that the in­ci­dent on stage was not planned."Hon­est. It wasn't. Even I was caught by sur­prise," he said, chuck­ling.Swap­pi's ap­pear­ance on the night's play­bill formed part of a va­ri­ety show­case which in­clud­ed per­for­mances from K-Rich, Flip­pa and Mark Hardy.

Reign­ing Young Kings Monarch Ben­jai was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled as the fea­tured act. But, he could not con­clude his com­mit­ments in the US to make it back in time for Un­plugged Tues­days gig to thrill his large fan based that in­clud­ed nine mem­bers of the na­tion­al un­der-23 foot­ball team, West In­dies all-rounder Dwayne Bra­vo and count­less beau­ties.News that nine mem­bers of the na­tion­al squad spread quick­ly across the precincts of Wood­ford Cafe and gen­er­at­ed na­tion­al fer­vour ahead of the team's World Cup qual­i­fi­er in Do­mini­ca, which T&T won hand­some­ly by four clear goals.They came in for ku­dos which con­se­quent­ly re­stored the sanc­ti­ty of the Wood­ford Cafe ex­pe­ri­ence con­sid­er­ing the ear­li­er oc­cur­rence.