One of the most anticipated events on the West Indian American Day Carnival Association’s annual weekend entertainment schedule is the BrassFest, which is held the Friday night before Labor Day at the Brooklyn Museum at Prospect Heights. Over the years, WIADCA has made great strides with this event which has always included the top artistes and bands from all over the Caribbean.
One of the relatively new features is the ability to now purchase tickets on-line and at select outlets. At one point, tickets were only available at WIADCA’s office or at the Brooklyn Museum.
This year’s BrassFest on Friday, Aug. 31, was a much-talked-about event. The show was to include top performers from Trinidad &Tobago as well as Jamaica; they were both celebrating 50 years of independence.
The event was emceed by MC Wassy and Giselle (“The Wassi One”), who did a phenomenal job at keeping the crowd moving and entertained in-between acts.
The show began at 8:00 p.m. with the WCK band out of Dominica, followed by the renowned Edwin Yearwood and Krosfyah from Barbados with their popular hits, such as Sweatin’, All Aboard and new Crop Over 2012 tunes.
Next up was reggae/dancehall artist Mr. Vegas out of Jamaica. The crowd went wild. BrassFest usually is an all-soca event’; so the added reggae was a welcomed change. A lot of the younger spectators sang along and waved their flags to his performance.
The last act of the night (or dare I say morning) was Mr. Fete — aka King of Soca, Machel Montano and his band, HD, which included Farmer Nappy and Patrice Roberts.
Machel took the stage at around 1:00 a.m. and launched into what he does best: a show full of energy. He sang many of his popular tunes and made sure to let the crowd know that the only place he would have been, aside from Trinidad on Independence Day was in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn has always supported Machel. The crowd, a mix of young and mature, roared in appreciation and had a great time.
