Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
A patron dances, entranced in the music at the Solid Gold Party, held at Mas Camp, Oxford Road, New Kingston on Saturday night. - WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE SETTING lived up to the Solid Gold theme, the music from Sparkles Disco was as Retromania as it comes, but it was a small audience which turned out for the party at Mas Camp, New Kingston, on Saturday night.
A mini-tunnel of gold strips of cloth against a black background at the entrance set the colour scheme which was carried out by similarly clad dancing ladies, puffy hair and all, mounted on mini-stages at each corner of a high, square rigging that created a dance floor out of the tarmac.
Party lighting set high on the steel frame reflected off the glitter of multi-coloured sprinkles, a 'retro' reflective ball high in the centre reflecting the theme and light as well.
But few stepped into the lights from the relative darkness at the edges on Mas Camp, most of the centre action left to the writhing, wiggling, barefooted, gold glitter covered ladies on the mini-stages, who were sometimes wraiths in puffs of party smoke.
And only one chose a bikini style bottom to show her glutes to maximum effect, a heaving chest on another young lady on another box proving that, just as in real life, it is 'rear' that one person has it all.
Sparkles had it all though, top, bottom and mid-range, going reggae on the later side of midnight with Beres Hammond's Putting Up Resistance and Ruddy Thomas' Loving Pauper.
The beat switched to disco with Dancing Queen and stayed that way for some time, a pair of big screens showing the cartoon figure of a little child jigging to a beat. I'll Take You There was appreciated, a pair of the solid gold ladies holding hands and doing combination dances. 'Oh What A Night'.
Just before Shake Your Booty hit the turntables, the gloriously gluted solid gold girl bent over for a drink, legs straight for an eye-popping view. Caribbean Queen was a popular number and that serving of disco ended with an extended mix of Never Gonna Give You Up, Silent Morning and Just Got Paid (one day late, of course).
D. Brown heralded a return to rockers with "here I come", two of the solid gold ladies taking to the bar to form dancing silhouettes against a lit Appleton board. Greetings was played a bit too fast, Under Pressure preceded the 20th anniversary rhythm, the Sleng Teng, on which Johnny Osbourne sang Buddy Bye.
There were a couple odd song sequences from Sparkles, though, the mix of Barrington Levy's Broader Than Broadway into Dignitary Stylish's Jah Sen' Me Come and back to Beres Hammond's One Dance being one of them.
The dancing ladies put limber waistlines to very good effect for the dancehall rockers of Shabba Ranks' Live Blanket and Flourgon's Big Ba--y Gal, Supercat's Mud Up bringing out combination steps from a pair of the ladies.
Major Mackerel demanded "whe yu head a do unda deh?" to end the reggae - and the solid gold ladies stint - at 2:00 a.m., 'Good Times' and the Gloved Wonder's pair of Billie Jean and Bad making it disco again, before the Fabulous Five's Ringroad Jam took the party into soca land at 2:30 a.m.
