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Here's
a question. When was the last time you went to a gig where everybody
in the audience (and I do mean, EVERYBODY) was dancing, moving, grooving
or foot-tapping from the first song to the last? It's a phenomenon
that happens rarely, but then Toots Hibberts is phenomenal.
One
if his entourage introduces him onstage in the manner of a boxing
announcer, which seems fitting when you consider that, despite his
40-odd years of success, Toots walks across to the microphone stand
like a prize fighter with something to prove. His legacy in music
seems almost forgotten but on the basis of tonight's performance
it has certainly not diminished.
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| Toots |
Toots
plays a Roots/Rock/Reggae hybrid, a description he declares in one
of many exchanges with the audience. Anyone that can play such a
stone-cold classic like 'Time Tough' two songs in clearly has a
lot of tricks up his sleeve.
It's
this wonderful unpredictability that makes the concert a classic
and Toots the consummate frontman. Within the first 30 minutes,
they've also done 'Pressure Drop' and 'Sweet and Dandy', but Toots
is merely warming up.
"OK,
you're going to be like the schoolchildren and I'm going to be the
teacher". Then the band launch into a rocksteady version of
'Louie, Louie' so good that it makes you forget its rock and roll
origins and causes an involuntary two-step movement that reverberates
around the venue.
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| Everybody
groove... |
But
then, this is the same group that made 'Country Roads' into a roots
masterpiece. Even when he misses his intro and the 'schoolchildren'
cheer at seeing their teacher make a mistake, Toots has enough of
a sense of humour to laugh along with them.
However,
his masterful command of band and audience never lets up. When the
microphone breaks down in the latter half of the set during a slow
ballad, it looks like the band are about to abandon the song when
Toots is swiftly handed a new one and immediately starts running
on the spot, lifting his arms up above his head, and gets the crowd
and band moving again at twice the speed they were before.
After
a fantastic 'Funky Kingston' and an encore that includes both 'Monkey
Man' and '54-46 Was My Number', Toots and the band walk off to rapturous
applause.
Only
fitting in the circumstances.
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