Date:Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Line up: Yellowman, The Devastators
Location: The Belly Up Tavern. Solana Beach, CA
Yellowman, the notorious dance-hall artist from Kingston Jamaica played at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, CA on Wednesday, October 5th. The event took place on a windy, rainy evening in San Diego as part of Yellowman’s current tour of the Northwestern part of the U.S.
[Editors Note: The Pier wants to give a huge thanks to Edgar Gaytan for setting The Pier up to attend this event. We’re very fortunate to be covering a legend in dance-hall reggae music with King Yellowman, made possible by Edgar Gaytan, Thank you!]
The show started at 9PM, but due to weather conditions, I arrived when The Devastators played their last three songs. The band’s music sounds like tropical reggae from the 1990s and is similar to bands like UB40 and Big Mountain. The Devastators had some sweet, deep bass-lines that weren’t hard to miss! They certainly set the evening for classic-sounding reggae music prior to King Yellowman’s appearance.
Tribe of Kings was in charge of the sound system. They work with such bands as Slightly Stoopid & they mixed some classic reggae songs before Yellowman’s band hit the stage.
The Sagittarius Band opened with easy-going instrumentals which picked up after awhile, and then took off when they announced King Yellowman onto the stage, proclaiming “Ya ready for the King of Dancehall!?” as Yellowman came out hot-stepping’ to a wildly cheering crowd! Yellowman started with a “Coh We/Sea Cruise” and then went into “Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt.” Yellowman played another song before announcing to San Diego, “I love you,” as well as, “I love all my American people.” Yellowman then performed, “Letter To Rosey.”
Yellowman, known for his live acrobatics of jumping around on stage, swayed his hips while getting the crowd pumped up as the band played. He then went on to play such songs as “Freedom Walk,” “Them Mad Over Me,” and “I’m Getting Married In The Morning.”
Nice backups from the keyboard player and the bass man occurred in a couple of songs, as well as the classic reggae “one drop” beat. A few instrumental solos took place, and this caused Yellowman to give props to his electric guitar player, who at one point rocked the guitar. Popular songs included, “Lost Mi Lover,” “Zungguzungguguzungguzeng,” and “Mr. Chin.” Yellowman gave a lot of high-fives and love to the crowd. He announced his departure, but his band asked the crowd if they wanted more, in which the crowd cheered.
Yellowman’s encore included instrumentals to Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You” before going into “Morning Ride.” Then, he had the crowd sing “Happy Birthday” to a girl in the audience, and even gave her a kiss on the cheek. He ended the night by continuing to tell the Birthday girl that she looks better than all kinds of better people, including Wesley Snipes, Gloria Estefan, and even Former-President Bush. The Sagittarius band continued to play instrumentals as Yellowman once again announced his departure off the stage. This legendary, Dancehall artist, who also admitted being “54,” was full of energy throughout his entire show.
– Article by: Liz Pimentel
– Photos by: Yohan David.
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