The Wailers at The Academy on October 3rd 2013-28-banner

The Wailers at The Academy, Dublin, 03 October, 2013

Reggae may have come a long way since it broke through as a genre, but it’s never forgotten the man and the band who broke it. More than possibly any other musician working in any other genre, Bob Marley remains the one defining artist whenever reggae is discussed. So maybe it isn’t all that surprising that, more than thirty years after his death, the celebration of Marley’s music is still going strong.

Since Marley’s death in 1981, his former support band The Wailers have continued touring and making music. As a group, they occupy that hazy middle ground between celebration of the music they helped create and a tribute act.

The Wailers are quick to embrace the celebratory nature of their continued existence, and their date in the academy Dublin saw them play the greatest hits compilation ‘Legend’ – still the best-selling reggae album of all time – in its entirety.

Leading the current iteration of The Wailers is bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett – the only remaining member who actually appeared on any of Marley’s albums. Stepping into Marley’s 250 million record selling shoes is a young Jamaican singer named Koolant Brown.

Brown’s voice may be deeper and harsher than Marley’s, but there is something about his vivacious, vibrant stage presence that lets him get away with taking the place of one of the most widely recognised musicians of all time. He performs with a youthful freshness that an older, more experienced musician would struggle to imitate.

As the group took to the stage, Barrett led the rhythm section – including special guest and former band member Natty Wailer – into an instrumental introduction to set the mood. Where most other bands would have tried to burst onto the stage with a rousing opening number, The Wailers eased their way into a laconic, calming melody. They played with such carefree ease they could have been breaking into an impromptu session on a street corner in Kingston, rather than standing in front of a venue that was packed to absolute capacity with eager fans.

Only once The Wailers had settled into just the right collective groove did Brown appear to crack into the ‘Legend’ tracks. For the early numbers they stuck faithfully to the track listing of the album, staring with Is This Love and No Woman, No Cry.

It was a daring move to play No Woman, No Cry at such an early stage. As The Wailers swayed their way through one of Marley’s most seminal songs, the Academy erupted into a mass sing-along that usually only occurs at the end of a show, if it all. It shouldn’t have been possible to maintain a high like this for the rest of their set, but somehow The Wailers pulled it off.

The sheer tough power of Brown’s voice meant that he excelled at the rousing, elemental clarion-calls like Buffalo Soldier and Get Up, Stand Up, but found himself struggling to capture the more subtle emotional depth of Three Little Birds, One Love and Stir It Up. Not that it mattered; the barrage of recognisable hit after recognisable hit meant The Wailers held the audience’s rapt attention.

The whirlwind onrush of greatest hits material culminated in Jamming, as The Wailers eased their way out of a performance that was at once carefree and tightly executed.

Minutes after the band took their bows and departed Brown reappeared onstage alone, carrying an acoustic guitar. As he plucked gently at the opening chords of Redemption Song he was greeted with a wave of joyous screaming. More than any of the other songs, this was the one that nobody but Marley could ever have made their own. But that wasn’t what Brown was even trying to do.

It was less an attempt at imitation, and more an evocation of the purity and tenderness of Marley’s original. With everyone in the Academy singing along and clapping out the beat it felt like a pure embrace of the love that this music has bestowed to a legion of fans, as much for Brown as for everyone else.

The reminder of The Wailers retuned for one last hurrah in the form of a twenty minute jam of Exodus. The song rattled off into a flowing succession of pulsing, improvised rhythms, and only when it seemed to have lost all sense and descended into total spontaneous aimlessness, it kicked into another round of the anthemic chorus.

It was a show that always had the potential to become one more tribute act riding on past glories, but once they took to the stage The Wailers did everything in their power to sweep aside any such thoughts and deliver a musical feast of positive vibrations.

The Wailers Photo Gallery

Photos: Shaun Neary