Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Left: A nattily dressed Chris Martin in performance at the show.   Right: Half-Pint brought 'Greetings', but many others billed for the show did not perform.

In the beginning of Foundation Music Showcase it was a scramble to get a chair to sit on and at the end it was not quite a scramble to get one to take home. Several members of a disgruntled audience left hanging with no explanation for the non-appearance of headline performer Peabo Bryson, left carrying their seats plus an extra, or two.

In between the 'chairs' there were performances from Hugh Jay, Lorna Bennett, One Third, Noddy Virtue, Christopher Martin, Gem Myers, Half-Pint, Gregory Isaacs and Ray, Goodman and Brown, but it was the white plastic chairs that got a walking ovation from the Constant Spring Golf Course, St. Andrew, on Saturday night.

At a few minutes to nine, there were cheers from the regular ticket area, far back from the stage behind the extensive VIP section, when Fab Five's Frankie Campbell said, "It is ironic that we have people fighting over chairs and we have so many empty chairs." The empty ones, however, preened in all their white plastic promise of comfort in the VIP area, while those who did get seating behind the fence of ticket expense perched on hard, iron chairs.

Later on most of the seating in the VIP area was eventually occupied by concert goers.

No more action

There would be no more action after Ray, Goodman and Brown's performance near 1:30 a.m. and as the music continued people started drifting away. As the music was turned down at 1;39 a.m., and more people started to leave, well-dressed patrons, male and female alike, started to take chairs with them, most taking more than one of the lightweight, easily carried chairs stamped 'KH'.

With parking provided on the lawns of the venue to the rear of the audience it was easy to stash them away, although some people walked out to Constant Spring Road with their 'compensation'.

All the tickets for regular seating were collected on entry, with no stubs being returned as evidence of patronage.

Several persons expressed their disgust in colourful fabric, while one man on a bicycle shouted at one of the trucks which had carried chairs to the venue.

"When de truck ready it no fe have nutten a go wheh eena! All de truck fe go whey empty! No chair!" he said.

One woman noted, however, that most people taking chairs were being reasonable, as they took two and at $600 or $700 each they were recouping some of the $1,500 pre-sold and $2,000 at the gate for regular entry. It cost $3,000 presold and $3,500 to get into the VIP area and while chairs in that section were generally secure, patrons there had to go through the regular seating to leave and not all left empty-handed.

There were sporadic attempts to recover chairs, but the vast majority went without challenge. And at the stoplight outside the golf club on Constant Spring Road a group of well-dressed, grim-faced women sat on what were now their chairs, watching a policeman direct traffic in the early hours of yesterday morning.

Patrons enjoyed the 'Foundation Music', before the mass exit after 1 a.m., when it became clear that headline act Peabo Bryson would not show. The Foundation Music Showcase was held at the Constant Spring Golf Club, Constant Spring, on Saturday, January 6. - photos by Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer