SOB 5
Last night was my first time attending SOB (Straight Outta Belmont) food-inclusive cooler fete which is odd given that I consider myself a card carrying son of a b....The event was held at the Government Campus and I must say the venue is a good one for parties except at the end of the night but I'll get to that.
There was a food lounge on the upper terrace with BBQ, Curry, Chinese food. The curry plate was a full buss up shot, with aloo, veg and meat...ting to make yuh curl up and sleep. For me though the food was disappointing as there were few non-meat options and the options they did have were done by the time we arrived. Not a good start SOB.
There was doubles and corn soup. The line for doubles was ridiculous so I went with the corn soup. What the corn soup severely lacked in terms of viscosity, dumplings and vegetables it made up for in flavor.
The decor wasn't extravagant but enough to create a vibe and soften the concrete cocoon of the location. There were street signs placed at various spots with street names from Belmont such as Jerningham Ave, Belmont Circular Rd, Belle Eau Rd. When they said they had a cigar lounge and a "hookah" in the back I got the wrong idea.
The performances started not long after we arrived with some up and coming bloke called Cassell whose song was titled "Sensational" and he used that word way too many times in one set.
Lead Pipe and Sadiss got the vibes pumping with level tunes. I had no idea them fellas had so many bangers. Lead Pipe's "any drink by the bar gimme plenty" should be in some kind of hall of fame.
I don’t know who needs to hear this but having bright, flashing, blinking lights like it's the runway at Piarco is not cool. SOB like they were trying to induce a seizure or conduct some psyops experiment on we.
We started off at the back of the fete but moved to the front nearer the stage just in time for meh soca crush performance. Nadia came on stage in a florescent orange outfit looking like a sexy pack of Chee Zees. Someone asked how I didn't end up under the stage for her performance. Could you imagine my conduct?? Yuh know when yuh eat corn curls and yuh fingers end up orange....well yeah....anyway......
DJ Linx came on to give us a break from performances as well as try to kill us with one setta old soca. Brudda...soca artistes does work too hard to create new songs every year for DJs to be playing tiny winey and dollar wine. Apparently he said he played vintage soca in some sort of tribute to David Rudder who also performed two of his biggest calypso hits. I would have accepted that excuse if his tribute included actual Rudder songs.
The performances resumed with Preedy and his performance was top notch. The brudda had energy and vibe but his catching was like he playing for the West Indies because he kept dropping the mic. He needs to attend Super Blue school of mic juggling.
There were also performances from GBM and M1 but the highlight was of course Bunji Garlin. The Vi-queen have some big big tunes eh from way back when but, with the monster hits Bunji was flinging out, there was a slight drop in energy whenever she sang. I am not the biggest fan of her songs so when she was performing I was studying if the Inland Revenue Division open for me to go pay my property tax again.
The party was scheduled to go from 5pm - 12am but promptly at 11:30pm they throw we out to the sound of a pan side. A man basically came on stage and said "yeah thanks for coming, now buss out"...have me feeling like I loitering and begging for money outside the Parkade. I ain't know if the fete license was expiring at midnight or somebody was turning into a pongkin but I felt used and discarded.
All in all SOB 5 was an enjoyable time. The food was disappointing and the DJ was failure but they still managed to earn a respectable "3.55/5 - Decent" on the TL Fete Ranking.
TANA