Reggae on the River 2003

I spent a bit of time validating all my templates and tweaking the new background color. Was ready to upload some reggae pictures when I realized none were very good at ‘capturing’ what reggae was all about, so they will have to wait until i have my photoblog up.

[edited to add: Kim Sallaway Photo Archive ]

Reggae on the River-aerial 2003 - Photo by Kim Sallaway
 
Reggae on the River -Unity-Photo by Kim Sallaway

A few thoughts about this years reggae, considering I have only missed 3 out of the last 20, was that this years crowd was a lot of what appeared to be ‘college kids’ with lots of money, not into the hippie, tie-dye, rasta, dead-head apparel which is usually predominate there. They also smoked more tobacco at this years event than I have seen at Reggae in a very long time. They also didn’t seem to care if they were polluting someone else’s air space with it, with a few exceptions who left the ‘parachute area’ when asked.

The weather was very different, as generally speaking a 90 degree temp is considered cool, this year it was maybe 80 on Friday, cloudy with RAIN showers and cool on Saturday until finally on Sunday the sun appeared and the temps rose to high 80’s…. which is my preferred way of experiencing the event.

Notice i am not talking of the bands so much? Well Sunday’s lineup was great roots reggae, but Saturdays with a few exceptions, was some sort of hip-hop, rap stuff where the lyrics leave ya wondering if these people know any words besides F*** and M*****F***** and Suck My D*** and Slap My B****!!!

ome one said I am getting ‘old’ and my response was that even when I was young i wanted music to SAY something. I use the F word plenty, i am no prude, and often my language leaves something to be desired, so that is not the issue here. If you haven’t heard this type of ‘music’ you can’t begin to understand what i am talking about.

Any way, I saw people I haven’t seen in a year, some in 15 years, and met a new friend…. a local KMUD news-reporter. They were making a DVD of this years 20th Anniversary of Reggae..
it should be interesting to see just what they include on it.

Mateel Aikido, Russel’s Aikido school always puts up a booth to sell burritos at Reggae, as many of the non-profits do here, to raise money for the year.

Mateel Aikido's burrito booth Reggae on the River 2003
Russel Wisby with student Ruby at Reggae on the River 2003
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