Joss Stone –worth the wait

Hosted by Kes The Band, the event was designed to give fans of the two acts “an up close and personal taste” of their latest and most favoured selections and hit singles. From as early as 6.30 pm, patrons began to assemble at the popular liming spot and by the time the opening act took the stage around 8.30 pm, the venue was almost filled to capacity.

Zachary De Lima, a 19-year-old singer/songwriter had the “honour and privilege” of opening the live performances and the “Orange Sky’s School of Rock Graduate” bravely shared one of his original compositions, along with a few popular cover songs while strumming his acoustic guitar.

“This was really a great opportunity for me,” De Lima said afterwards. “I have to thank Kees for giving me the chance to share my talent on this stage and thanks to RuStreet for providing the platform and to all the people who took the time to listen to me and showed appreciation as well.

I really love music – making it and sharing it – so I’m working toward making my dream a reality.” With hundreds gathered and waiting for her appearance, Joss Stone (born Joscelyn Stoker) walked calmly across Grey Street from the backstage area to the stage entrance on Rust Street and skipped up a few stairs and on to the stage. The screams and cheers were instantaneous, but the talented vocalist calmly brushed the fanfare aside and dove straight into her set.

“It was amazing. I really enjoyed it!” said Stone afterwards.

“Kes is awesome. I’m really loving Trinidad right now. Everyone is so cool and friendly here, but there’s so much talent as well.” Stone’s fans gazed at her almost in disbelief as she shared her unique and powerful voice for 40 minutes, including crowd favourites such as “Love Me” and “Music” “I want to...” She teased the audience after a couple songs, “but maybe it’s too soon... Could I...? No, I’ll wait... Maybe later...” Revealing a bit of her amicable personality in between songs, Stone also expressed her love for the “Trinidadian accent”, before closing with a dynamic cover of “Preacher’s Son”.

Lead singer, Kees Dieffenthaller and his band of brothers took the stage around 10.30 pm and immediately launched into an hourlong set, complete with his many hits as well as several new songs.

From “This Aint Love”, to “Balloons”, to “Fallin” and the 2011 Groovy Soca Monarch classic, “Wotless”, the energy and intensity grew to fever pitch. Diffenthaller closed the show by calling young De Lima back on stage to praise and thank him publicly, before leaving him onstage while he dove into the crowd for a final romp atop the RuStreet bar with his “People”.

“This was a real blessed vibe tonight,” said Dieffenthaller. “It was a lot of fun and I felt a lot of great positive energy was exchanged.

I must say a special thank you to Joss... and Zach, Benny, Simon, Carolyn and my whole team for making this a reality - and of course to all the fans and supporters and the people that came out and made this a really special night with us.” The event ended just before midnight with scores of patrons expressing complete satisfaction with the performers and the event as a whole.