Stephen’s been my favorite Marley son since 1996, when at 15 years old I turned on the Grammys to watch the Fugees perform. 21 at the time, he came out draped in a rasta flag and jumped around all over the stage for the highest energy version of “No Woman, No Cry” I’d ever heard.
On Tuesday night, Stephen delivered that iconic tune among over a dozen of his father’s songs. The set opened with “Rastaman Vibrations” and skanked on through “Get Up, Stand Up,” “Three Little Birds,” and a fantastic “Simmer Down.”
His album Mind Control is rock solid, and I was surprised he chose to focus so much on his father’s material and not his own. The show’s highlights were likely that album’s title track, hit single “The Traffic Jam,” and the grooving “Inna Di Red” he brought out for an encore.
Then again, those heavily produced, borderline-rap songs are more difficult to perform live without a DJ and production. And Stephen’s band, especially his bass player, were probably the tightest reggae band I’ve witnessed. When I’ve seen Ziggy cover his dad’s tunes, it comes off just like that — a cover. Stephen embodies his father so closely that hearing him play “Exodus” sounds completely genuine and not contrived.
Sometime during “Buffalo Soldier,” I closed my eyes and realized that in a blind “hear test,” I probably couldn’t distinguish between his and his father’s voices. Then I opened my eyes and there’s the spitting image.
Pretty cool to see that with a handful of folks at the Music Farm.
(Photos by Andy Lassiter)
