Yesterday, I journeyed East. East of the River
Waveney. I ventured as far East as the road
would take me, to the most Easterly point of
the British Isles in fact. I travelled to see
the legendary Lee Scratch Perry in concert,
on the eve of his 78th birthday....in a
nightclub....on a pier...in Lowestoft. You
couldn't make it up.
Aided and abetted by the current incarnation
of The Upsetter Band, Scratch was on
sparkling form throughout and considerably
more focussed than when I last saw him 11
years ago. Between songs he exchanged
greetings, words of wisdom and fist-pumps
with the audience, before turning to the band
and asking,'What now?' They responded by
kicking in the next rhythm (sometimes
familiar, sometimes not), over which Perry
intertwined freeform ideas and phrases with
occasional snatches of the song's original
lyrics.
We were treated to smatterings from Scratch's
association with Bob Marley, 'Sun is
Shining', 'Jah Live' and 'Crazy Baldhead',
the latter featuring shoutouts to individual
members of the Royal Family, as well as other
rhythms from his vast catalogue such as
George Faith's 'To Be a Lover (Have Mercy)'
and his own 'Roast Fish and Cornbread'.
Scratch seemed unconcerned at the abysmal
turnout (around 150 in a venue with a near
900 capacity), obligingly grinning everytime
he spotted a camera pointed at him and
complimenting individual audience members
left and right - 'I like your hair', 'I like
your hat'. Finally, after 90 minutes, he sang
'Goodbye, bye, bye, bye, I got to go...'
before leaving us with perhaps a little too
much information '...I got to take a piss'.
Here's George Faith's original 1977 Jamaican
12" version of William Bell's 'To Be a
Lover', featuring a brief cameo from Scratch
himself towards the end.
Many happy returns of the day Mr Perry.
