Here was a nice surprise. I mean, I really liked the album that Nas and Damian Marley made together – so I kinda figured the show would be quite good-minimum. But it was great – easily one of my favourite shows of that year. I’d seen Nas before (and I’ve seen him since) and he’s a great live performer. But I wasn’t quite ready for this show – the run of hits. As well as Marley and Nas serving up material from their collaborative album (with a great band) the two took turns to deliver solo hits. For Nas that meant the great Illmatic album and selected career highlights. For Marley Jr that meant some of his own songs and a bunch of tunes from his famous father.

Now, curb your cynicism, Wellington – New Zealand in fact – has been full of people serving up “unofficial” (and trite) Marley covers for the last decade and a half or so. To hear someone related to the man nailing those songs was just fine on the night. If anyone’s gonna cover Bob Marley it might as well be one of his legitimate offspring rather than any generations-and-oceans-removed “progeny”.

Some very serious reggae fans were upset that I didn’t name any of the original songs Damian Marley played in my review. They forget that a) I had 300 words for a mainstream newspaper audience and b) being fans they musta known the song titles already, right? Weird what winds people up, mention of a bunch of Bob Marley songs is far more important to a mainstream newspaper audience than the names of the songs his kid filled the sit with in and around the classics from Bob.

I notice, just now – this was not planned – that this show happened four years ago today.
Stubs is an occasional feature here at Off The Tracks – looking back through the ticket-stub box and remembering how the show went down.