Tanya Batson-Savage, Freelance Writer 
PHOTOS BY NORMAN GRINDLEY, Staff Photographer -
Tivoli Dancers perform at the Jamaica Coffee Festival at Devon House on Sunday.
THE PROMISE of a caffeine buzz, or maybe just a pleasant way to pass a Sunday afternoon, lured scores of Jamaicans to Devon House for more than the usual ice cream run on Sunday. The first Jamaica Coffee festival took place on the grounds, uniting two Jamaican legends, coffee and Devon House.
While there were samples from various coffee factories and other companies using coffee in recipes, the festival would not have served to pique the imaginations of those who came expecting to see wild ways of using coffee. However companies such as JABLUM used the festival to provide the patrons with a taste of their newly-prepared coffee beverage.
BOOTHS AND DISPLAYS
Nescafe, Wysinco Traders, Greenwich Coffee Estate, and Excelsior were among the companies displaying their wares. Other than the display booths and samples, there was neither much to do nor see at the festival and so boredom was easy to find.
As the day wore on, Rosie Murray cajoled the audience's participation with a few games and questions, luring patrons to the stage to win prizes for 'the shortest couple', 'first man in a pink lady's cap', and so on. The segment also included a sing off, which featured possibly the worst public display of being tone deaf, outside of a karaoke competition.
HIGHLIGHT
Consistent entertainment entered the grounds when Fab Five took the stage at almost 5:00 p.m. From the sound check, which featured the rhythm for the hypnotic 'Ooh Wha', the band proved to be the highlight of the festival. As such, by the time Grub Cooper, the band's lead vocalist and drummer, asked the question, "People are you ready?" the required response "Bow! Oh Lawd!" quickly followed.
Though Cooper's vocals would dominate the second half of their set, the first half featured something of a changing of the guard, with trumpeter Samuel Grant doing most of the vocals.
Queen Majesty, One of Those Days, Rock Away and God is Standing By made up the group of introductory songs. God is Standing By was performed for being spared the full frontal assault of Hurricane Ivan. Of course, the grounds themselves, which merely featured battered and broken trees spoke of how lucky the island had been.
With the praise aspect out of the way, Fab Five then encouraged the audience to "bruk out" with Red Plastic Bag's Ragga Ragga, launching the soca segment with Keyboard player Donovan Palmer on lead vocals. Kevin Little's Turn Me On allowed for a smooth segue into the dancehall segment.
When Grant, who was on lead for this tune, found that the audience was not being active enough, he took them through their warm-up dance exercises. This proved to be just the beginning, as after running through several of the songs on the Diwali rhythm, grant took the dancers through a slew of current, and not so current, dance moves.
LOTS OF DANCING
Grant called and the audience danced. They moved from higher level to more arbitrary moves like 'shark a come'. When he named 'umbrella' one woman saw the humour in actually using her umbrella rather than miming. "Hey lady," Grant called out to her, "mind yuh jook out di people dem eye, cause yuh bruk like me." Of course, the dancing did not end there.
However, the onus was removed from the audience as two clowns were called to the stage and it was their turn to dance under Grant's instruction.
Fab Five delivered an approximately two-and-a-half-hour set which had the audience either dancing, screaming or both. The band once again proved that their longevity has nothing to do with luck, but comes from talent and versatility. Where the java had not proved to be very versatile, Fab Five delivered pep and oodles of versatility.
