I stood in line outside Leede Arena at about 7:30, feeling cold and wet, attempting to cast vicious glances at the group of nine-year-old boys standing in front of me, and I wondered if all of this was an indication of how the concert itself would be.
Thankfully, I'm jamming on my way back to the dorm three hours later, high on awesome music and second-hand smoke. Ziggy Marley and The Melody Makers were good enough to make me forget about the Hanover High groupies.
Leede was moderately crowded, with most of the audience packed near the stage and some people -- who looked mostly like parents -- in the back bleachers. I saw people who ranged from the age of six to the age of sixty, and everyone was ready to jam.
The crowd was a sea of dreds and tie-dyed shirts, and even before the music started, the air was permeated with the smell of "herbal refreshments," to quote one of my favorite movies. The clouds increased as the concert went on, which perhaps prompted Hanover's finest to roam through the crowd.
From the way the crowd was dressed, I was expecting Ziggy to be wearing wild, colorful clothing, but he stepped on stage in a white button-front shirt and khakis, looking more like a J. Crew model than reggae prince. The group opened with "Brotherly Sisterly Love," from their 1998 Grammy Award-winning album "Fallen is Babylon."
The song "Power To Move Ya" definitely had the crowd moving. The audience was energized, dancing and swaying to the up-beat rhythms. At one point early in the concert, a beach ball was tossed in the air, but soon disappeared. Someone also attempted to start a crowd-surfing trend, but that thankfully didn't catch on.
During the song "Day By Day," one of the members from the opening band returned to the stage to sing with Stephen Marley. This camouflage-covered Marley got the audience jumping again, but he left the stage after that one song. The cover of father Bob Marley's legendary song "Jamming" inspired the audience, and "Free Like We Want 2B" had everyone enthused as well.
Ziggy Marley would occasionally pause between songs to speak to the crowd. At one point he talked about learning the history of Christopher Columbus in school, but never learning about his true history -- black history. He then proceeded to sing the words, "Black, my story," another crowd-pleasing tune.
When Marley and the Melody Makers left the stage, the audience screamed, hooted, yelled and succeeded in bringing the group back for an encore. Losing my voice to bring them back on stage was well worth it. The encore was amazing. The band closed out the concert with another Bob Marley cover, "Could You Be Loved." One of the Marley sisters danced along the edge of the stage and sang to the lucky audience members who were at the very front of the crowd.
In the middle of the concert, before singing "Free Like We Want 2B," Ziggy Marley said to the audience, "Freedom isn't just a physical thing. It's also a mental thing." He talked about experiencing freedom in all senses. I would apply that same idea to this concert. It was a physical and mental experience, a celebration of the senses that won't be soon forgotten.
