It was not the same as last year, but the 2008 BVI Music Festival did attract large crowds  and delivered spectacular entertainment each night.

The three-day event is one of the premiere events of the British Virgin Islands and attracts visitors and residents alike to Cane Garden Bay in large numbers.

The organising committee must be commended this year for putting better systems in place to deal with the usual traffic congestions heading into Cane Garden Bay.

Kudos also to the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force and other security personnel who ensured that the entire weekend was violence free.

In addition, the shuttle system was also very organised and also responsible for the smooth flow of traffic into Cane Garden Bay.

However, there was a small hiccup in the way persons were dealt with who were given passes for the event.

A typical and very embarrassing scenario at the pick up point in Road Town emerged, where a purported Committee Member of the BVI Music Fest who ensured everyone had a ticket, was very rude to some patrons.

Before the bus leaves, he ensured that everyone had a ticket which is a good thing, however, the problem was the way he went about doing this.

One of the StandPoint’s reporter was subject to embarrassment on Friday night when he told the committee member that he had a pass. The person rudely responded that if he had a pass he should have worn it.

The problem is not him telling the reporter what he should have done, but the way in which he spoke to the reporter which can be described as rude and uncalled for.

Eventually the matter was resolved but in another embarrassing way when the pass of the reporter was whisked out of his hands to be verified if it was indeed authentic.

Another scenario arose on the same night a little later when passes of some young persons were taken away and the Police was called in to help verify the passes only to find out that they were authentic and issued to the right persons.

There must be a better system to deal with such suspicions especially when persons who genuinely had passes issued to them have to be subject to such callous approach.

All in all though, the Music Festival was a great event and commendations must be given to all the performers, especially the local acts who take part each year each year and highlight the musical talent of the BVI.

Quitos and the Edge, a local reggae band delivered a rocking performance on Saturday night.

The band is soon to release a new album on June 7 and rendered most of the songs from that album.

Their performance set the stage for the main acts to follow on Saturday night.

Friday night’s soca acts were thrilling and up tempo, while Saturday night was more conscious except for Beenie Man, who even though he rendered very good songs for a dancehall king, the explicit lyrics were not relevant for such an event.

It was very interesting on Saturday night after midnight to see a mother with a young child, about a year old, in front of the stage.

The child was asleep and the mother tried to cover his ear when the loud music started.

The mother said the child wanted to come to the show to see Damian Marley. In all fairness, what does a child at his age knows about Damian Marley and the parent should know have known better that the child would be asleep at that time. Sadly also, when the performer came on, he was awaken to look at the performer to which he did not seem too happy about. I would say that was a case of Child Abuse.

With that said, Sunday night was a wine down of the weekend activities and the crowd was taken down memory lane with Jerry Butler, Jeffrey Osbourne and En Vogue putting the cap on the bottle to end the weekend of musical ecstasy in Cane Garden Bay.

Kudos to the organisers for putting on another successful music festival, and to bmobile for being the main sponsors of the event.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment