BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AFTER two days of raw local talent many have described the two day Home Grown Festival held Friday and Saturday (Sep. 16-17) as a great opportunity to give the local artistes here a time to shine.
On Friday the Verchild’s playfield saw a big crowd for the first staging of the show, which featured performances by artistes such as Minister LK, Rudii, Fresh Kutt, Hotta Lyrics, Sky Bal, Kash Man, Jah Fire and the sensational songbirds of the duo Dymanyzd.
All the artistes gave exceptionally good performances that had the crowd moving and singing along throughout the show. However, it was the Upstairs Family who kicked things into full motion.
From the time the group stepped onstage with artistes like Footsy, Nicha B, Silk, Empress Levity and Pinocchio, and yelled their famous slang “Somebody say upstairs” the energy began to flow in the crowd.
They belted out a number of their individual hits that included songs such as ‘Wan Reach Far’, ‘Turn Back The Hands of Time’, ‘Choices’, ‘Mama Don’t Worry’, ‘Stop Chat People Business’, ‘Get Krunk’, ‘School Time Lover’ and the ‘Young Money Anthem’.
They kept the hype throughout their entire performance which had the crowd singing along and waving. The performance climaxed with Footsy singing ‘Gone Again’ which left the youth with a positive message.
The man responsible for the event Crucial Bankie, defined the Upstairs Family performance as being ‘amazing’ and said he could not believe he was in St. Kitts.
Evolution Sounds then warmed up the patrons for a brief moment, after which the Nu Vibes Band took over and brought the curtains down on night one of the festival hosted by Sweet Sister Sensia and Sugar Bowl.
Meanwhile Saturday night did not draw as big a crowd as night one and many people were of the opinion that Friday was the better night of the two day festival.
Night two was topped off with performances by artistes such as Crucial Bankie himself, Watusie, Riverside, Dagga, who was phenomena, as well as Simburgers who got some laughs out of the patrons with his famous chants and cripple dance.
One of the highlights of that night was a dancing competition, where one little boy no more than 10-years-old beat out two adults with a ‘piece a wuk up’ that left patrons amazed, yelling and screaming for him.
Saturday night was hosted by Magic and Tony of Winn FM.
Speaking with some persons about the festival, one man said he enjoyed both nights. He said Saturday was more for the older folks but he ‘likes that there was something for everybody’.
A young man said he thinks the show was a good thing for the artistes to showcase what talent St. Kitts has to offer. He added that he was disappointed more people did not come out to support their own because if it was an overseas artiste there would have been many more people.
A female who said she always supports the local artistes had the same sentiments but added, however, that she is looking forward to seeing attendance at the festival increase over the years.
Speaking with Crucial Bankie after the two events, he said the concerts went down very well despite a lot of hitches.
“We manage to pull it off, Friday night was exceptional, Saturday the turnout was not as good I guess because there were a lot of other events,” he stated.
Bankie noted that there are certain areas they need to strengthen but next year people can certainly look forward to only bigger better things.
