bob_dobalina

last night i saw a man that had been touched by the almighty. jah! rastafarai!

me and shifty went to the hollywood bowl sunday evening for the annual reggae night concert. last year i saw toots and the maytals and jimmy cliff in the annual event that was heavily flavored with gospel and rhythm and blues. sunday night's show was headlined by bunny wailer and opened by luciano.

luciano did a really good job of setting the mood for the evening. the lead vocalist was really feeling the audience and he even pulled a little boy out of the crowd do join him in some high stepping. there was also a senegalese dancer that was brought on stage that danced like some large jaguar climbing a tree.

no night at the bowl is complete without the masses of party people l-i-v-i-n it up. i got to see the hippie curtis (visualize: 50-something, six and a half feet tall, grey dreads down to his thighs) who seemed like he was on uppers as he nearly crushed my hand when i said hello. i met curtis on the previous wednesday when he was doing psychedelics and trying to stand on his head on the incline of the outer rim of the ampitheater. curtis shared his jizzoint but was acting a little too animated for my vibe last nite. and there was j who i introduced myself to in a rare moment of heeding the demands of my naughty bits. j was hot and had really nice smelling hair but was way intense. all her questions were kind of steppin on my buzz. i sparked a spliff which she kind of sipped on before revealing, 'i'm the most conservative girl, ever.' after i said 'i guess i shouldn't mention that i work in porn' she made a departure and left me to pass the spliff to the people sitting behind me, who were way more mellow.

bunny wailer is the last surviving member of the wailers, with the prophet bob marley and the poet peter tosh having passed away in the 1980's. nobody can cast doubt on the power bob had to fill his audiences with love and emotion and it was clear that his childhood friend and disciple bunny possessed the same ability.

after being introduced by the band, bunny took the stage dressed in a flowing technicolor dreamcoat of white and gold. the set opened with a brief sermon and then a few refrains of hymns. when the music began in earnest each person in the bowl was tied together with the bindings of peace and harmony.

from what i can recall from my very limited bibical knowledge, once jesus had ascended into heaven the disciples went about their own ways to spread the word of god. and the people that they met wanted to hear the good news. the disciples had performed their own miracles or holy acts over the time that they were touring with jesus but the people wanted to know about christ. and it was the obligation of the disciple to tell the people what they wanted.

now comparing bob to jesus would probably not go over too well in the eyes of my parents or the church that i was raised in but i'm trying to make a point. both had a power to change the world and inspire greatness in their believers. and while their disciples were great people in their own right, the people wanted to hear about the principle. and that's what bunny did last night.

after doing a set of his own songs and delivering a brief thesis on why we must defeat the systems of babylon by smoking marijuana--which i happily obliged--bunny and his band covered peter tosh's 'legalize it' before launching a series of bob's best-loved compositions like 'simmer down', 'no woman', and most of the other songs from that 'legend' cd that everybody owns. to his credit, bunny performed those covers with every bit of passion that he sang earlier. he gave the people what they wanted and the people loved him for it.