I have this Artist in Residence thing (AIR) going with UG via Dr Griffith the VC and as part of that, the band (Oliver Basdeo, James Jacobs, Colin Perrera) and I are doing some gigs around the place. We did a sweet one at the Seawall Bandstand and then a real Essequibo night at Anna Regina, and last week a bout in Berbice. I say ‘bout’ because Berbice is very energetic place (maybe it’s all the small farmers) and that night in New Amsterdam was magic. The Tain UG Deputy Director, Paulette Henry, and her team, were terrific and the guy from GT who ferried me up and back, Rhinold Cameron, was a boss driver. Also the exchange with the UG Arts students at Tain was great (I saw some of it streamed) but the highlight was the evening performance in town at a Banks DIH site they call ‘the Berbice Seawall’. The guy at Banks told me, “You’re gonna be amazed with the crowd here when you start with your songs” and I thought he was exaggerating. I was wrong. Anna Regina was good; this topped that. The place was a maelstrom from the word go, I ended up doing a lot back and forth with them, and it was a real Berbice time ‒ unrestrained and joyful, for them and the band. I was tired before we started, but not at the end.
I have learned performing over the past 50-plus years that there is a thing that happens with audiences when the material you’re presenting is actually about them; it becomes a link that is almost tangible; you can see it in the facial expressions, or things they shout at you, or their exuberant response to a particular line, as when I told the crowd in New Amsterdam,
