BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — All doubts were laid to rest, when Lionel Richie took to the stage at the St Kitts Music Festival on the final night on Saturday.
“Sugar City!” he called out to his screaming fans.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know why it has taken me so long to get here, but I am now here to stay, right here!… I’ve been all around this place, I’ve been to Nevis, I’ve been there, I’ve been here, and now I get here and I see you and I understand what Shaggy was saying, ‘You’re gonna come here and you’re not gonna wanna leave, brother, you’re not gonna wanna leave!'”
It was clear that Lionel Richie effortlessly stole the show. The fans unashamedly sang along with him and danced their hearts away, and at the end of the show fans admitted that they had had the time of their lives.
Richie himself, who seemed to have had a real fun time, rated the show highly when WINN FM asked him about it.
“The crowd was amazing. First of all they knew the songs better than I did. It was fantastic. I’ll be back. I’ll be back!”
Earlier Pan jazz expert Andy Narrel and Trini veteran calypsonian Relator performed to a much smaller crowd. Narell felt they brought something different to the festival.
“We had a lot of fun playing here,” he told WINN.
“It felt really nice out there. Like the people were really enjoying it…and we enjoyed ourselves. It felt like a really good vibe between the band and realtor and with the audience… I’m enjoying it so much. Every minute of it.”
Tourism Minister Ricky Skerritt enjoyed Saturday night’s pan jazz kaiso session. WINN FM spoke to him, a former Windies manager, while Relator belted out his famous cricket song.
“The cricket is part of our culture, so it blends a whole bunch of Caribbean stories together. It helps to tell the Caribbean story… one of things that the St Kitts Music Festival does is that it brings the best of St Kitts and Nevis, the best of the Caribbean and some of the best of the rest of the world that we can afford, and we try to get a bunch of local, regional and international visitors to just have a wonderful time.”
The soca fans had their Thursday night, reggae dominated on Friday with Beres Hammond and Shaggy taking centre stage.
But his long standing fans will tell you that Lionel Richie ‘killed it’ on Saturday.
The 2013 St Kitts Music Festival certainly made an impact on a country battling political demons at the moment.
source: CAribbean News Now
