WeBeat patrons savoured every moment of We Vintage Kaiso–the Calypso segment of WeBeat St James–last Friday at the St James Amphitheatre. The lineup of calypsonians included Black Stalin, Baron, Johnny King, Scrunter, Shadow, Twiggy, and Bro Valentino. As expected with such a star-studded cast on a Friday night, the show attracted the largest crowd of the week-long festival, and by 9 pm, there was standing room only. Calypso lovers enjoyed the show until the early hours of Saturday morning.
The artistes brought back pleasant memories with their past hits, and also gave the audience a taste of some of their work for the 2011 Carnival season. Among the favourites of WeBeat patrons, the Mighty Shadow, dressed in his characteristic black suit, ran through a selection of his hits that took the audience from the early 1970s to the present. Naturally, this had the audience calling for more, but all objections to Shadow's departure vanished when Scrunter, another favourite of the calypso-loving crowd, made his way onto the stage.
Scrunter wondered aloud why he was not hearing any political commentary coming from his fellow calypsonians, and decided at that point to take the initiative by giving the audience a small taste of a commentary that he is still working on, stopping just as members the audience were gearing themselves up for the punch: "Come to the tent if you want to hear more," he teased. The show's MC was Nikky Crosby playing the role of "Gladys," a spunky senior citizen whose spicy speech adequately makes up for whatever her age has taken away over the years.
Gladys provided generous doses of humour that was tasteful despite the fact that some of the jokes could be classified as adult material. We Vintage Kaiso provided the ideal start to the weekend climax of the nine-day WeBeat Festival, which ended with the parade of steelbands and traditional Carnival characters the following night.
