What is up my reggae friends?

What is up my reggae friends? I am back with some news. I had an amazing weekend with some cool reggae bands. Last weekend I went to a Toots and the Maytals cover band. Of course no band can compare to the original but they were actually really good. But my weekend wasn’t that simple actually. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a story to tell on this website.

So a few weeks ago I actually was called by the lead singer of the band. He was familiar with my website and my love for reggae music. Of course this is already amazing. To hear that people and even bands are reading and looking at my website is awesome. But it gets better. The singer invited me to travel to Michigan where they were giving a concert. All expenses would be paid for by them including a hotel, and eating with them in different restaurants. In exchange I would write a review and article about their band for this website, giving them some much deserved press. So I packed my bags and went to Michigan with my car. They even paid for my gas expenses which was fantastic.

Arrival 

Upon arrival I met the lead singer and the rest of the band who all seemed to be very nice guys. They were living the reggae lifestyle which you could clearly see. They were cool, easy going and calm. They didn’t have the cultural or ethnical background of the reggae world though. Funny enough they told me that they were all from middle class families and were raised by their parents completely without any reggae culture. They discovered it on their own and loved the lifestyle and music so much that they were drawn to it. They started their band when they were 20 and quickly started covering the big reggae artists, course Bob Marley and Toots and the Maytals. Eventually they decided to become a Toots and the Maytals cover band only.

Cover Bands 

I must admit, I am not always the biggest fan of cover bands. How can they ever be as good as the original band? But I must admit these guys were awesome. They played and sang the Toots and Maytals songs in completely a style of their own. The guitar work is different and the singing was absolutely very different. This makes for an interesting situation. Because they of course present themselves as a cover band and although the lyrics and basic song structures are the same it is still a reggae experience that is completely different than the Toots and the Maytals. I mean this in a positive way. After the show a got a change to see how it worked backstage and we hung out for a while. After that we went to a restaurant

Where I asked why they weren’t writing their own music. They clearly had the talent. The singer told me that they had been thinking about it starting to write their own music but they were still in the progress. They wanted to start preforming their own songs in June and according to them they still had some fine tuning to do. In the future it will be interesting to see if they will transcend just being a cover band and start making and writing music of their own. I am sure that their music will be awesome reggae music and they will be awesome. Now I’m going to put on the free music they gave me and chill back to some of their Toots and the Maytals songs.