Some nights you know while you're shooting them that they're history. Encore was one.
On August 27, 2026, Machel Montano headlined Boston City Hall Plaza — presented by Riddim & Rum, with Lady Lava added to the bill as co-headliner. Montano is the 12x Road March King, the most decorated soca artist alive, and the flyer for the night said plainly: come witness history. For once, the flyer was right.
The flyer said come witness history. For once, the flyer was right.
Because Montano didn't just perform. He received a citation from the City of Boston — a civic recognition, on the plaza in front of City Hall, of what soca and Caribbean culture mean to this city. That's not a small thing. Boston's Caribbean community is one of the largest in New England, and Carnival season is one of its biggest cultural moments of the year. To have the city itself stand up and acknowledge the man who has done more to carry soca to the world than anyone alive — on public ground, downtown — is the kind of moment that outlives the set.
From the pit, the performance was everything you want a headline set to be. Montano works a stage the way only someone who has done it for thirty years can — arms thrown wide, the whole plaza singing back at him, a performer locked so deep in the work he forgets the cameras are there. Those are the frames you wait for: not the pose, but the moment the pose falls away.
Lady Lava, the just-added co-headliner, brought her own fire to the night, holding the stage with the kind of presence that explains why she got the call. Between the two of them, the plaza had range — the global soca king and a rising force, on one bill, on one downtown night.
I shot the whole thing — the performances, the citation, the crowd, the attendees who make Carnival season what it is. That's the assignment on a night like this: not just the star on the stage, but the community in front of it, the civic moment, the whole record of an evening the city decided to mark. Come witness history. We did. It's all here.