Bob Marley Birthday Celebration: Featuring Damian Marley & The Ghetto Youth Crew, Luciano with Mikey General

Well, it’s official; pure talent and artistic indifference is pumping through the Marley blood, floating rhythm from one generation to the next and pretty much to anyone that carries his style or covers his songs. This fact was obvious to the many audience members and myself, who, together, filled The Brick Works Wednesday night. The building was literally spilling over with people decked out in colorful beanies, dreadlocks and baggie pants.
I could barely move among the diverse crowd as the assortment of musicians belted out that distinct, almost indescribable Jamaican-sound; the only thing I could see on stage was their country’s flag waving above the endless ocean of heads and hands.
Not to sound melodramatic, but I felt as though I’d been transported to some euphoric plain of mental existence and suspension that I had never before visited. The series of moments within that imagined diversion of common social normalcy was considerably unique because of how many locals shared it all with me, as though accepting the pink wristband was our united signature on a Brick Works “contract” that would separate us from the world we all think we know.
With one timeless performance after another, the many talented musicians and singers stepped onto the little stage to play their fucking hearts out. Of course, there were people that seemed incapable of ending their dance(s), out to have a full-fledged “good time,” and there were people like me who stood where they did at first, incapable of moving while any variation of Marley was heard. I couldn’t move my eyes away from my own mind, even for a second, with all those sounds beautifying that which is audible…and somehow, that’s all I have to say about that.
–Andy Harvey
–Photo by Myles Stenger

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