Sizzla performance sparks 'Village Live'

Popular night spot to host monthly one-person concerts

Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

After hosting the much-talked-about solo performance from singjay Sizzla Kalonji in January, the Village Blues Bar is hoping to wow fans on a monthly basis with a live performance from a single act.

Taking to the stage last month at Village Blues Bar at Orchid Village in Barbican, the reclusive Miguel Collins, also known as Sizzla Kalonji, gave a performance that has sparked interest in a more intimate performance from some of the local greats in music. Speaking with The Sunday Gleaner recently Steve Billings, proprietor for Village and promoter of Village Live - the name the monthly show will go by - says patrons can expect 11 more great performances to complete 2011.

"Its a 12-month series, one artiste per month," Billings commented, pointing out that this is his first experience promoting any event, and calls Village Live his 'baby'.

"We started this to get to donate funds to charity (The Jamaica National Children's Home) and to generate traffic into the venue. Village is known for live music and the venue allows for a small, intimate setting. What it did for patrons, is that normally you'd see a person like Sizzla at a stage show yards away from you, but we gave you Sizzla at arms length. He took photos, we did up posters and CDs and the patrons got them autographed by him."

200 tickets per show

According to Billings, there are 200 tickets per Village Live and with the performance, patrons will be getting photos and CDs for the artiste to sign.

Last year Village hosted a similarly successful live show, but with more artistes, called 'Italee, Quizz & Friends' which is organised by Italee Watson and Carrie 'Quizz' Sigurdson. That show should be returning this year.

While the support for the first Village Live was more than Billings expected in terms of patrons and the numerous media that showed up, sponsorship, he said, was non-existent.

He explained, "its very expensive to put on a show like that, the production cost was like $255,000 and at the end of the day we were only able to give $25,000 for the donation to the charity, which was basically all of the proceeds. We sent out letters to like half the companies you see sponsoring most of the events around and figured with Sizzla performing who wouldn't be interested? But we got nothing. This time we're hoping after all the exposure, to get sponsorship for the next event."

queen ifrica or etana

For the next show on February 27, Billings hopes to change the pace with a female act on stage, who, like Sizzla will perform three half hour sets.

"We're looking at either Queen Ifrica or Etana, we wanted the next act to be a female and we think either of the two would be fitting for black history month," Billings said.

According to Billings, Village Live would not be looking for artistes who are seen on a regular basis but for cultural positive musicians who aren't performing in Jamaica often like Capleton, Richie Spice, Sanchez, Tanya Stephens, Luciano, Anthony B, Ken Boothe, Leroy Sibbles and others. He joked, "we'd love to have Capleton but I don't know if Village can contain his fire."

He added, "we are the only entertainment offered in this vicinity of Barbican, and we're doing it right now so we hope the response keeps on going well."