Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
DANCING FEET that were moving happily to Sizzla Kolonji's Karate, thundered into stampede in a split second to bring the FAME FM 21st anniversary celebration to an end just before 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The Greater Portmore police had no reports of injuries and were not able to identify the cause of the mass panic.
There were many frenzied feet to pound the concrete at the Port Henderson Plaza in Portmore, St. Catherine, where persons enjoying the free jam lined corridors of the four-storey building, crammed into the huge parking area and lined both sides of the street.
Fortunately, there was room to run at the back of the crowd, facing the stage where the turntables were set up for the FAME disc jockeys to deliver the music, and it was close to the rear that the party-ending disturbance appeared to have started.
ENJOYMENT TO CHAOS
The transformation from enjoyment to chaos was not the only quick change of the night but the other, from the turntables, showed the variety that is one of FAME FM's hallmarks. Elephant Man had legs jigging with the Crazy Hype at 2:30 a.m. and, immediately after, Sizzla rasped "Me no want no r... c..t man back a me", to the delight of thousands.
Then the deejay said "I am going to play one soul song. Oonu would a lynch me if me no play dis one."
And the opening lines of John Legend's Take It Slow proved him right. "Who love it say pull up!" he said. They did and he promptly restarted the song.
"Okay, into the mature segment!" the man on the turntables said, dropping Half Pint's Greetings, to rapturous response.
Young or old, the 'mature music' hit a groove, as Supercat's Under Pressure was cut to Tiger's Wanga Gut; General Echo's Arlene,was lapped up and the deejay slipped in "FAME FM a champion" in Tenor Saw's Ring The Alarm.
"Everybody, let your voice be heard!" the deejay encouraged on Johnny Osbourne's Buddy Bye, but as they responded appropriately to call and answer "Who, yeh!" he slipped in a surprise Bounty Killer's Logde.
HUGE FORWARD
Loud shouts of "Forward"
belted out from upstairs, in the parking lot and across the road from the Port Henderson Plaza.
They had to wait a while, though, for Lodge to be played in full, for after going back to Buddy Bye the deejay went for the singers Beres Hammond, Tony Curtis, Sanchez, Wayne Wonder (with Buju Banton) and Ronnie Thwaites, before rejoining the deejays with Terror Fabulous' Gangster and Louie Culture's Bogus Badge. Lodge came before a series of Sizzla songs, the stampede coming on Karate.
It did not take long to decide to end the party, as after appealing for calm the DJ played Bob Marley's We Will Be Forever Loving Jah, wished all a good night, asked the people not to linger too long and thanked all for coming out.
There were various expressions of disappointment and disgust from the departing party fans. "Yu know whe hot me, catty in a jeans an braps, is de bomb rush," one man said.
And, stuck in traffic, one lady expressed what was probably the general sentiment. "Mi vex, mi vex, mi vex, mi vex," she said from the passenger's seat.
