HOW ABOUT THIS FOR A SUMMER FESTIVAL IN JAMAICA
/How about this for a summer festival in Jamaica? You still have time to buy your tickets and fly in to enjoy the Startime festival with Marcia Griffiths, Freddie McGregor, Leroy Sibbles, Errol Dunkley, Derrick Morgan, the Clarendonians and Lloyd Parks, Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy, the Mighty Diamonds, DJ Dillinger and Frankie Paul.
The Original Startime Returns To Clarendon July 2
The extremely popular Startime vintage concert series will make its highly anticipated return to the parish of Clarendon at the Juici Patties Verandah on Saturday, July 2.
The 27-year-old series, returns to Clarendon for the first time since 2000.
Startime is still something of a phenomenon in Jamaica's music history in that it grew from a small after-work event in the Old Spanish Town Bar at the now defunct Oceana Hotel, downtown Kingston (beginning June 1988), into a massive, internationally renowned concert, which has outgrown several venues.
Michael Barnett is very happy to be presenting the event on the Reggae Day weekend (July 1) as a tribute to Jamaica's 52nd anniversary of the birth of rocksteady, considered Jamaica's most creative music era since 1960.
"A number of the vintage artistes who helped to create the rocksteady genre like Marcia Griffiths, Freddie McGregor, Leroy 'Heptones' Sibbles, Errol Dunkley, Derrick Morgan, the Clarendonians and Lloyd Parks, are fittingly on the Startime lineup to re-create the sound and the vibes. And the Startime massive will once again get the opportunity to turn back the clock to arguably one of the best times musically in Jamaica," Barnett said.
The Startime line-up is completed by '70s reggae superstars Johnny Clarke, Horace Andy, the Mighty Diamonds, and DJ Dillinger, plus '80s giant Frankie Paul, all backed by the Startime Orchestra Lloyd Parks and We The People.
Ecstatic
Barnett's partner, Charles Simms, is also ecstatic about Startime's visit to Clarendon at this time as he said there have been numerous requests from fans around Jamaica to take the show on the road, and Clarendon right now is the most appropriate location, considering the parish's great music tradition being the birthplace of the likes of Startime stars Freddie McGregor, Derrick Morgan, Peter Austin, and Ernest Wilson of the Clarendonians; along with Millie Small, Toots Hibbert, Barrington Levy, and Coco Tea, who readily come to mind; plus the fact that The Juici Patties Verandah venue in the middle of Jamaica is comfortable and spacious and easily accessible to all, especially with the new highways and Knutsford Express, who will be shuttling patrons from all their locations.
"We are taking it to Clarendon for the very same reason it was started: keeping our musical heritage alive, and the demand of patrons everywhere who can't seem to get enough of Jamaica's foundation music stars. I can hardly walk the street without someone asking me where next," said Simms.
Tickets can be purchased at any of the 62 Juici Patties Restaurants across Jamaica; in Mandeville at Manchester Golf Club; in Kingston at Kool 97FM, Mary Brown's Corner Texaco Grab 'N' Go, Derrick Harriott Twin Gates Plaza, Devon Bourne's Rubis Half-Way-Tree and in Portmore at Portmore Mall Pharmacy.
V.I.P. tickets are $7,000 inclusive of drinks from a local bar and a meal. General admission is $2,000 presale; $2,500 at the gate.
