Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter
From left Admiral Bailey, Pliers and Chakademus during an outstanding set at 'Dying To be Dancing'. - PHOTOS BY WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
PATRONS WERE kept moving all night long at Mega Jamz's and B-Mobile's 'Dying To Be Dancing' show on Saturday night.
The event was held at the newly-renovated Countryside Club and it proved to be a perfect venue for the more than five hundred persons who came out to see some of their favourite acts.
It is sometimes difficult for an opening act to warm up a crowd, but for France Joli, the first act for the night, this wasn't a problem. She started her performance some minutes after 11:00 p.m and ended at 12:10 a.m. Among the songs she performed was Come To Me.
A DEFINITE HIT
The Ladies of Chic were a definite hit with the crowd. Apart from doing songs such as Dance, Dance, Dance, Good Times, they invited patrons on stage to show some Jamaican dance moves. One man went up and started off with the 'Moonwalk', but soon after got into the groove of things and did the 'Willy Bounce', and the 'Out and Bad'. The Ladies of Chic joined in and pretty soon it was a dance class on stage.
While the crowd was involved in their performance, later, when the voice of Pliers doing the introduction to I Wanna Be Your Man echoed from the speaker boxes, it was sheer madness. When Chakademus joined him on stage, it only got worse. They did a number of songs including Murder She Wrote and the crowd loved it. Later in their performance, the duo was joined by Admiral Bailey who performed his hit with Chakademus,One Skotch.
The crowd simply couldn't get enough and even after Chakademus and Pliers exited, they clamoured for more. The duo returned for an encore.
PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS
Still, the best was yet to come. It was Diana King who pulled out all the stops, bringing along back-up singers and dancers.
It was 45-minutes of screaming, jumping - and well, more screaming. Diana King was the highlight of the show for a number of persons in the audience. One person commented: "Even if a did she one perform, it woulda still worth the $3000."
Among the songs she performed were Summer Breezin', Shy Guy, and the new single Yu, Done Kno. It was therefore no surprise that she was called back for an encore, for which she did, Say a Little Prayer.
Between songs, King kept highlighting that it had been years since she had performed in Jamaica. "Mi glad fi come back home, ... mi caan believe seh mi finally reach home," she said.
After her performance, she told The Gleaner: "(I feel) ... great that it's over and that everyone seemed to have a good time. It was a lot of stress, but good stress."
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
She said Saturday night's performance was just the tip of the iceberg. "It's just a taste, this is the beginning, because my focus is on fanfare. The Caribbean and America."
All good things must come to an end, and that's exactly what happened soon after Taylor Dayne started performing. What should have been the climax of the show, slowly turned out to be its low point.
Some of the songs Dayne performed were I'll Always Love You and Tell It To My Heart along with some of her new songs. She, however, failed to perform some crowd favourites such as, Love Will Lead You Back, and instead did a set consisting of songs that were unfamiliar to the audience. In a little under twenty minutes, Dayne left the stage with the crowd unaware that she had performed her last song.
The patrons stood looking at the empty stage with flashing lights and at 3:10 a.m., were left with no alternative but to leave.
