Punky Reggae Party

I flew out to Bali on Friday morning with the intention to come back right after I was done with my work on Saturday night. The previous weekend there had been quite heavy and I had no intention of dragging my friends who live there through any more madness than they had already experienced. I just felt that we all needed a break. But as usual, destiny had different plans for me. As I was waiting in the departure lounge I saw about 7 Rastafarians on the other side of the room. One of them had a guitar. Now if these guys were going down to Bali for a session, I wanted to know about it. I talked to them and they informed me that they had actually played a concert here in Jakarta the night before. I never even heard about it. Totally shite promotion I tell you. They informed me they would be playing on Saturday night on Blue Ocean Beach which is directly in front of Double 6 (66) in Bali.

It turns out that the concert was labeled “Tosh Meets Marley 2006 World Tour” and they would be playing hits from both the legends. It also turned out that one of the dudes in the band was one of the members from the original Wailers! His name was George I believe. Hell, I was in the presence of reggae royalty. I talked to him a while and it turns out he has played with pretty much every reggae icon that I have heard of. After bidding them well I immediately batted out an SMS to all my connections letting them know what was going down, inviting them, and that I would not be coming back as planned. Fate had made a clear cut decision for me. I was going to bust my ass for the next 30 hours and then hit this concert. I got in touch with some mates in Bali when I got there and brought them up to speed with the plan. No one had even heard that this concert was going down but they were equally pumped to go check it out.

Needless to say I had a horrible 2 days of work. The clients were extremely difficult and at one point they even tried to extend their trip for another day! I did my best to make it impossible without making them feel like I was getting rid of them. But at that moment if they had managed to extend I probably would have just walked away. I was in no mood for nonsense. Once they were gone I linked up with my buddy and head down to Blue Ocean. I ran into Kweku there, one of the band members I met the day before. He is also from Ghana so we hit it off right away. We were discussing how the crowd was pretty thin. I had only seen one poster in Kuta and it was all the way down by Peanuts. There was no pimpage of the concert around the popular tourist hubs. But in the end that might have been a good thing because the crowd was pleasant and not too big.

A local band opened for them. It was some dude I have seen play at the parties here but I can’t remember who. He was alright. It must have been 9.30pm when the main performance started. They opened with Peter Tosh’s rendition of ‘Johnny Be Good’. It was wikid. They carried on playing some classics and some original tunes. The band was clearly extremely talented and apart from a few minor glitches with the sound equipment it went off great. The vibes were awesome and the tunes off the hook. They played everything from ‘400 Years’ and ‘Good Ganja’ to No Woman No Cry’ and ‘Concrete Jungle’. They finally closed with a 10 minute finale of ‘Jammin’.

We had a tight group as well. There was no booze sold in the enclosed area but we brought in a bottle of Jack which was passed around the community. The concert did not last as long as I would have liked it to but all good things must come to an end. At least that is what my father has always told me since I was 7 years old at Disney Land, but I just can’t seem to get a grasp of it. The logical thing to do would be to have a cup of coffee and a couple of smokes before heading home to bed. But no! We continued with a tour of friends’ houses drinking along the way and finally ending up at Hu’u Bar and Living Room.

We capped off the night by watching the sunrise on Sanur Beach. What was supposed to be a very mellow weekend turned out to be another wild one. We got up the next afternoon and spent the day at dreamland. He water was fucking cold but a great cure for a hangover. It is at time like these that I truly appreciate life, luck, and the chances we take. Had I not been on that flight and had the ability to just strike up a conversation with strangers at the airport, I would have missed out on a once in a life time opportunity. But one action resulted in a series of inconceivable events that took place that night. Most of them I cant write about here though.

I should also add that for breakfast we downed some coconut water that was picked right off the tree in my friend’s back yard. He has a really cozy place with a small plunge pool and traditional Balinese shack in the yard. You got to love the island life style. Shan, what can I say…