Apart from Bryon Lee and the Dragonnaires, Krosfyah, and at one time, Square One regional bands have had relative success in pulling off big shows here; the inclusion of at least one ‘big’ artiste is crucial. And Karma suffered from that failing at the National Park on Saturday last.
Riding on its chutney fame, which is pretty huge in the region, Karma cruised into the country perhaps hoping to see the legion of fans that seemed to have warmed up to the band following its stop over here a few months ago, but instead met a skimpy crowd of just about 200 if so many. As the night progressed, a few others trickled into the park.
Was it a poor promotional campaign that resulted in the measly turnout? Was it the inclement weather? Or was it simply a case of people being not too bothered, or more accurately, unable to afford the $1,500 asking price? Whatever it was Karma lacked the appeal, and regrettably so. The band is actually quite good, and if anyone knows how to throw a chutney party it is the Trinidadians.
Performing out of Trinidad for some four years now as a band of mostly family, Karma understands entertainment and it delivers. It also helps the band that its lead vocalist, Ravi B stands out as a performer of rare vocal quality and range, and that he also gyrates to chutney music way better than most people can.
Not often do you find a chutney singer with the versatility to do a cover of dancehall singer, Movado’s “Special” and sound as nearly good as the Jamaican. Ravi B belted out the chutney tunes that set him atop the chutney world in the Caribbean, and also remixed some of the better known reggae and dancehall tunes for the fans who turned out at the park; and they ate it up.
His sister, Nisha B, adds a flavour to the band that is likely responsible for its particularly solid male fan base. She sexes up the band’s act, but is also a strong singer and an equally strong dancer. Next to her Ravi B’s chutney moves do not look as hot.
From the minute he took the stage on Saturday the familiar words, “Akela hoon main” rolled off his lips and jolted the crowd into reckless revelry. The words, which open his popular hit “Rum is Meh Lover”, are as well known as the title of the song. Though he was promoting alcoholism at a time when calls are being sounded here for companies such as DDL and Banks DIH to share greater social responsibility in the effects of it, the chutney singer raised his voice and performed the song with passion calling on fans to, “hold up de Banks beer bottles or whatever y’all drinking”.
There were at least two visibly inebriated persons in the crowd gyrating to “Rum is Meh Lover”; one man looked like he had been close to his rum hours before the show started.
Ravi B then fed the crowd a string of his chutney hits including, “Gul yuh Start Meh”, and “Teer Cheer”, drawing from a large catalogue of tunes that Karma has complied over the years. He, along with the other members of the band even performed a wine-down session for the crowd, demonstrating how “trinis does wine”.
It was mid-way into the band’s close to two-hour performance when Ravi B and company decided to wine-down and the fans loved it–they even managed to get a few persons in the crowd worked up enough to put down some wild moves of their own.
The Karma experience that WildFire Promotions promised turned out to be exciting with Ravi B headlining the band’s act. What was missing was audience numbers.
