Two Saturdays ago, Park Albina came alive as Jera Entertainment hosted its third annual reggae show in the village in Paramaribo, Suriname.
This year, the show featured a few local bands from the country and was headlined by reggae sensation Glen Washington who was backed by the Heatwave Band of Guyana.
This marked the return of the popular home band as they were featured at the same event last year as the backing band for another Jamaican reggae artiste – Warrior King.
The event seeks to bring live entertainment to the small village known for its love of reggae music, especially the sounds of the late South African Reggae icon Lucky Dube who was very popular in the neighbouring country.
Glen Washington expressed his gratitude to the band for their hard work; however, this is the second time that they performed with the artiste – just over two years ago they worked with him here in Guyana.
The band, which has been in existence for six years, has rapidly become a household name. They have since been making waves in the music arena, being dubbed the most popular string band in Guyana, performing at just about every major event that has been held. They have also been the house band for the annual CaribSoca Monarch Competition.
They have played for many international artistes, such as Machel Montano, Rupee, Turbulance, Lady G, Admiral Bailey and Flourgan, just to name a few; as well as many Guyanese artistes and they recently played backup for young dancehall superstar Alkaline who performed at the 2014 Jamzone Regional Night concert, the second band outside of Jamaica to ever perform with him.
The band consists of musicians Anthony Johnson (bass guitarist), drummer Devon Roberts, keyboardists Earl Bishop and Joshua Dennis, lead singers Carlvin Burnett (former first runner up in the GT&T Jingle and Song Competition) and Tennicia De Freitas (two-time Junior Calypso Monarch and artiste out of Kross Kolor Records) who also performs background vocals.
Along with Band Manager Chenille Bowen and engineer Jermaine Rollins, they all travelled to Suriname on Thursday, September 4 to prepare for the much-anticipated show which was very well attended.
They performed a half hour repertoire of old and new reggae music which put the crowd in a bouncing frenzy, getting them prepared for the main act of the night. Jera Entertainment was also very pleased with the performance and looks forward to continued work with the band for future shows.
The CEO of the Band, Anthony Johnson promises to do much more for the ending of the year and the years to come as they have already added a number of dancers, a sound engineer and deejay.
The band is scheduled to perform at upcoming events in and out of Guyana for the remainder of 2014. Photos of the trip and video clips of their performance in Suriname can be found on facebook.com/theheatwaveband.