Gillian Moore

3 Canal is known for their feel-good rap­so vi­bra­tions, but it was their so­cial­ly con­scious side that came to the fore, when they brought their an­nu­al Re the Pub­lic con­cert to the Queen's Hall stage on Sep­tem­ber 24. They came to deal with se­ri­ous busi­ness. The cur­rent state of emer­gency was the top­ic of the night, and the trio treat­ed it with grav­i­ty. The state of emer­gency in­spired them to dig in­to their 15-year reper­toire, pre­sent­ing rarely per­formed but strik­ing­ly rel­e­vant num­bers about crime, jus­tice, op­pres­sion and pol­i­tics. The con­cert they pre­sent­ed was stir­ring, poignant and pow­er­ful.

The show start­ed off with Mis­tah Shak, whose Rogue took him to the Di­manche Gras stage this year. The per­former, still new to many, came out singing of Jah Love, ask­ing his au­di­ence to De­fend Your Rights, and de­liv­er­ing his Free­dom Mu­sic, which, as usu­al, got his au­di­ence on his side, de­clar­ing: "We need some eman­ci­pa­tion from this jump and wave sit­u­a­tion." Atak­lan came next, backed by Shak and his band, com­ing out on stage in a burst of en­er­gy, singing Straight Ou­ta Mor­vant, an ode to his home town. He con­tin­ued his en­gag­ing set with Caribbean Swag­ger and Shad­ow in the Dark.

Dark times

The stage was en­veloped in pur­ple mist and a voice be­gan to read out the rights guar­an­teed to cit­i­zens un­der T&T's con­sti­tu­tion. Then, dressed in black with touch­es of red, the men of 3 Canal-Stan­ton Kew­ley, Wen­dell Man­war­ren and Roger Roberts-came on­stage. They sang "Oh peo­ple, what do we know? ..it's time to show that we know we know," but at the end of the song, Man­war­ren com­ment­ed: "What we don't know is, why are we un­der a State of Emer­gency!" draw­ing loud ap­plause from the au­di­ence. They launched in­to a new­ly-com­posed num­ber, State of Emer­gency, chant­i­ng, "What is the rea­son, what is the cause, what is the rea­son? Tell we, de boss!"

Man­war­ren those in pow­er should not "treat we like chil­dren," but in­clude the peo­ple in their an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives. He al­so said we need­ed to "deal with crim­i­nal­i­ty in the so­ci­ety at all lev­els." They launched in­to Where Do We Go From Here, echo­ing the ab­ject at­ti­tude felt by many cit­i­zens. The words of Mar­tin Carter's This is the Dark Time, My Love echoed out, as the band, Cut + Clear (El­liot Fran­cois , drums; Corey Wal­lace, bass; Si­mon Men­doza, keys; Ki­wan Lan­dreth-Smith, gui­tar; and, Jay­ron Re­my, se­quencer), played.

Lights flashed evok­ing sirens and the mu­sic was slow, stri­dent and rhyth­mic, as 3 Canal con­tin­ued with a song that might have been writ­ten for the cur­rent na­tion­al cli­mate: "Emer­gency, de whole place red, jump high, jump low, some­body dead." The song was, in fact, writ­ten ten years ago, over the 9/11 dis­as­ter in New York. They con­tin­ued with Piti Pa­ta: "this place have too much-a guns," af­ter which Man­war­ren chas­tised the "stu­pid punks out there with guns in their hands." A Song for Bil­ly was next, ded­i­cat­ed to a young man, nick­named Star, one of many who were killed by gun vi­o­lence. Man­war­ren called out and em­braced dancer Ly­dia By­ron, who was seat­ed near the front, say­ing that her son, too, had been killed by a bul­let ear­li­er this year. It was a som­bre and emo­tion­al point, and the at­mos­phere was in­tense.

Hope

Then 3 Canal start­ed turn­ing it around, singing Over the Moun­tain, with its mes­sage of hope and heal­ing. They kept slow­ly rais­ing the vibe with a song rem­i­nis­cent of the 23rd Psalm, singing: "Be not afraid, Chil­dren, walk in the light and every­thing is go­ing to be al­right." The in­spi­ra­tional Trod­din On was next, be­fore the words to Carter's Look­ing At Your Hands rang out "... I do not sleep to dream, but dream to change the world..." Next the rap­so men de­clared "the Re-evo­lu­tion Time," singing mil­i­tant­ly, "I am the change I want to see, the pow­er and the vic­to­ry."

That was it. Spir­its were lift­ed and it was time for joy again. 3 Canal per­formed Talk Yuh Talk and pa­trons walked down the area in front of the stage to dance. They con­tin­ued with I Be­lieve in Love and did Good Morn­ing, Neigh­bour as a lagniappe, fill­ing the hall with good vi­bra­tions. Pa­trons sang and waved, big smiles all round. Af­ter­ward, pa­trons said they had en­joyed the show, call­ing it "strong" and "pos­i­tive."