By Anil Batra, Picatra Music Journal.
One does try to keep an open mind about these things, but nothing in my years covering Glyndebourne prepared me for an event beginning, by all accounts, well past the hour at which any respectable person would be considering breakfast.
An undeniable sincerity that even I found rather moving — against my better judgment.
The setting — Plantation Cove, St. Ann, a substitute venue owing to hurricane damage — was pleasant enough, though I confess I missed the complimentary Pimm's tent one rather takes for granted at home.
The headline act, a Mr. "Vybz Kartel" (one gathers this is not his given name, rather in the tradition of "Sting" or "The Edge," though considerably less economical with syllables), took to the stage at what I am reliably informed was gone two in the morning. Punctuality, it seems, is a foreign concept in dancehall as much as it is at British Rail.
He arrived — and I use the word "arrived" charitably, as one might of a hurricane — in full military camouflage, to what I can only describe as a genuinely startling pyrotechnic display. His counterpart, a Mr. "Mavado," opted for all-black leather, which I'm told is meant to evoke a prior era of their rivalry. Two grown men reconciling a decade-and-a-half feud through the medium of matching stage costumes and a duet is not, perhaps, how we do things at the Proms, but there was an undeniable sincerity to it that even I found rather moving, against my better judgment.
The crowd's enthusiasm was, I'll admit, something to behold — twenty-odd thousand phone torches aloft, a spectacle rather more captivating than anything achieved by our own festival-goers waving their pints about at Glastonbury.
Would I attend again? The hour remains a genuine obstacle. But I begrudgingly concede the thing had a certain electricity that our more decorous engagements sometimes lack. Three stars — docked one for the start time, one for the complete absence of a decent cup of tea, and a bonus half-point restored for the fireworks, which really were quite exquisite.