Kavelle Anglin-Christie, Staff Reporter
Dionne Warwick reels off one of her hits at the 'Dionne Warwick and Friends Show', held at the Cable and Wireless Golf Academy, Park Boulevard, New Kingston on Saturday. - PHOTOS BY WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
TRY TO imagine 210 minutes of non-stop great performances at an entertainment event.
Not many of us can. But a few hundred patrons at Saturday night's show with Dionne Warwick and Friends, That's What Friends are For, experienced this first hand.
The show was held at the C&W Golf Academy, New Kingston, and was worth the wait, after being previously postponed because of bad weather.
Set to begin at 7:00 p.m., the event started an hour and a half late on Saturday, with the Fab 5 band taking the stand and starting to play after some prompting from the audience.
The night featured hits of yesteryear, and a few new songs, with each performance averaging 20 minutes.
Prilly Hamilton was the first of the advertised acts and he delivered a satisfactory set which had patrons rocking to songs like Living for the City.
Cabaret great, Karen Smith, followed him and opened with a Kiki Dee's 1975 hit, How Glad I Am. The song moved one woman in the VIP section so much, she stood in front of her partner and did her own rendition for him.
As Smith moved into her next song, she seemed to have made the decision to forget that she was wearing a long ball gown as she began to dance as if their were no limitations. She did Singing Sandra's calypso favourite Die With My Dignity and the crowd loved it.
TOUCHED
Then came A.J. Brown, who opened with Rupee's Tempted to Touch. The ladies, especially, seemed to enjoy his performance. One female patron, so delighted, pulled out her best 'wine', which of course drew his attention: "Watch yah, behave yourself man," he laughed.
For those who never knew A.J.'s range, they got a real surprise when he performed Andrea Bocelli's Time To Say Goodbye (Con Te Partiro), at the end of which he got a standing ovation.
The lady dubbed the 'Queen of cabaret', Gem Myers, got the crowd moving with her rendition of I'm Every Woman, when it was her time on stage.
TEMPO
She later slowed the pace with You're Gonna Love Me from the 1981 Broadway musical Dreamgirls and again increased the tempo, with another of her songs, One Man Woman, which the patrons, (mostly women) danced and sang along to.
Reggae great, John Holt reeled off hit after hit during his set. Love I Can Feel, Stealin', Sweetie, Stick By Me and Carpenter were among the songs he performed. During his set, he invited the persons sitting in the general section to join those in the scanty VIP section. They happily did so, and pretty soon it was a full party.
