Trojan Sound System in Margate!

Dreamland, Margate
Saturday 5th August, 2017

I'm so glad Emilia told me about this. Trojan Sound System playing for free, outdoors on a beautiful sunny afternoon/evening at Dreamland, Margate, and featuring one of the great Jamaican deejays, Big Youth (or "Jah Youth" as he now seems to prefer). I saw a few other Canterbury friends there, but it was mostly a Thanet crowd...great to see working class families, hipster colonists, hippies and aging skinheads all enjoying this beautiful occasion together. We even got an almost-full moon rise as the sun was setting.

I arrived to catch the end of a set billed as "The History of Black Music with Ashley Beedle and Jo Wallace featuring the Ramrock Allstars Greg Blackman, Taz and Mark Professor". That was a DJ with a couple of MCs, quite an edgy dancehall vibe, but great to hear that bass on a decent system! Between that and Big Youth appearing on stage there was an intriguing reggae/dub set from the UK DMC (scratch DJ) champion Jon1st who, rather than scratching as such, played lots of little bits of roots'n'dub classics on one turntable and added all kinds of psychedelic-dub-type sound effects with the other one...worked very well. And Jah Youth was a joy to see and hear, working his way through all his hits, still very youthful in his energy levels!