He wore a leather jacket over
a flowered white shirt, faded blue denim jeans and white trainers and very
large shades. He held a white tumbler, which he handed to a stagehand,
beforeng his jacket to reveal a cordless microphone sticking out of
his trouser waistline.
After his first
song, he was quite certain the platinum crowd was too cold for his liking
and that is when he beckoned the active gold and silver audience to move
close to the stage.
“I did not come to
perform an opera,” he said before reaching down to touch the stretched
hands.
It was clear Shaggy
was happy to be back here and said he kept saying spending New Year’s Eve
in Uganda would be a tradition for his band.
Sharing the stage
with his all-male band, Shaggy put on an entertaining two-hour show, that
started just after 10 p.m.
Shaggy combines a
musky sensuality with raw sexuality. A skilled and remarkable singer, he
sang with ease, drawing from his collection of old and new songs, 19 in
all that evening.
Oh Boy, That Girl,
Boombastic, Oh Carolina, By the Rivers of Babylon, Two Way, In the Club,
Lucky Day, Angel, Carolina, Freaky Girl, It Wasn’t Me, Lucky Day, Strength
of a Woman, Genie, Keeping It real, Dance and ShoutShaggy just went on and
on.
Freaky Girl was
preceded by advice to practice safe sex for anyone that wanted to get
freaky. As if to show him that it knew better, the audience threw the
Protector condoms at him.
But it was the women
who got more of Shaggy.
A slight drizzle got
everyone worried that the skies wouldup and Shaggy sang Keeping it
Real under a leaking stage tauplin.
The audience did not
expect Dance and Shout would be his last. And then event emcee Uncle
Mitch, went on to usher in the New Year prematurely, nine minutes before
midnight.
After the colourful
display of fireworks, the driving audience was up for a real nightmare. A
traffic gridlock turned the seven-kilometre journey from Munyonyo to
Kampala into a near four-hour snail-paced
one.
