Gregory Isaacs @ Club Suede 6/16/06
| This was my first time seeing "The Cool Ruler" in person, though he's always been one of my favorite reggae artists and I've owned one of his concert DVDs for several years. I suppose if I had my druthers I would choose to have seen him in his prime (arguably the mid-eighties), but even to have the chance to see him at all is most welcome. This show was also the first I've seen at Club Suede in Park City (Kimball Junction to be precise). I had been to Club Suede a couple of times, but never for a live show. The club is quite comfortable during the warm weather months when the large patio/balcony is open, but less so when one is limited to it's interior. Luckily this show was one in which you could make your way outside for some fresh air on occasion. In fact, Tee and I went by the club well before the show in order to pick up our tickets before heading off to dinner. The place wasn't officially open yet, but there were several of the musicians and touring crew members milling about and taking advantage of the pool tables that had been set up on the outdoor patio. I think I was mistaken as another crew member or club employee because I received a few "what's up?"s and high fives from some of the dreadlocked musicians. After collecting our tickets we went to the Japanese fusion restaurant nearby, Happa. Our plan was to sit at the sushi bar there, but after being seated I had the distinct feeling that we were about to be disappointed by the quality of their sushi. Happa is owned by the Latitude Group, who also owns the Mikado sushi restaurants in Salt Lake as well as the Kamppai sushi bar on Park City's Main Street. I had recently heard the a sushi chef friend of mine, Mike, had recently taken charge of the sushi bar at Kamppai, so I used inquiring about him as an excuse to leave Happa and go to Kamppai. I simply asked if they knew if Mike was working at Kamppai that night, and when they said that he was I said something about not having seen him for a while and thought perhaps I should go eat at Kamppai that night instead. It worked beautifully and we headed into Park City convinced the sushi would be better at Kamppai. It was. Mike took great care of us and we indulged in a great omakase (chef's choice) dinner that Mike made especially for us. We made it back to the venue just about the time the first warm-up act was taking the stage. I cant' remember the name of the band, but they were a band of middle-class American white guys who played a nice set of pretty authentic sounding reggae tunes. Before the next act came out Tee and I found a comfortable place to stand at the bar next to the stage and behind the sound engineer's board. The club was getting crowded and we felt lucky to have found a spot where we not only had a bit of space to move around, but which had a great view of the bands on stage. The second warm-up act was a very impressive artist named Nasio Fontaine (I've since purchased his album "Universal Cry"). He's a tall, skinny, and ruddy-faced guy from Puerto Rico who, despite being a bit hard to look at, who has a beautiful voice and writes some truly wonderful tunes. His girlfriend spent the set dancing throughout right next to us. Finally it was time to see Gregory Isaacs. Where we were standing was directly in the line between the dressing room and the stage, so when Gregory was walking to the stage I got a high-five from him. He looked old, but surprisingly not as old as I was expecting. He donned a very nice pin-stripped suite and white fedora type hat. The crowd was very excited upon seeing him and he sounded really good. He played several of his most well known songs including Night Nurse, My Number One, Private Beach Party, Material Man, and Blueberry Hill. While he had only been playing for about 45 minutes, we were forced to leave because we had to get back to our baby sitter by 1:00. We weren't too disappointed however because Mr. Isaacs had already blown through a good number of great tunes and had fulfilled all of our expectations of him. Even Tee, who doesn't go in for reggae all that much said she really liked it, and even suggested she might want to joining me at another reggae show again in the near future. |