Peter Lloyd now on Pure Love island tour

Reggae singer-songwriter Peter Lloyd's appearance at the National Gallery recently marked the middle of his Pure Love tour of Jamaica. A world tour with the same theme is planned for next year.

He and his management team - Team Peter Lloyd - have put together a good show and future audiences will no doubt enjoy it as much as the National Gallery audience did.

Talking about the itinerary for his first Jamaican tour, Lloyd said: "We started in Ocho Rios at a Cancer Society benefit two months ago. We did Montego Bay. I was the guest artiste on the Gungo Walk Festival (held in Kingston at the Edna Manley College in September), and we're here at the National Gallery this afternoon.

"On November 19, I'll be in Negril at Bourbon Beach, and then at the Oracabessa Herbs and Music Festival in St Mary on the 4th of December."

He continued with the world tour itinerary.

THE LOVE MESSENGER

"For 2017, we're going to Europe first, then right across North America (Canada and the US), then Central America and the Caribbean. That tour should start in February to March, but in the meantime, we're on the road doing my new album."

Lloyd, whose European fans call him "the Love Messenger," was wearing a pink shirt - for the first time, he said, in recognition of Cancer Month and particularly in remembrance of his well-known theatre practitioner friend, Scarlette Beharie, who recently died of the disease.

Backed by a three piece band - Ottmar Campbell (keyboard), Ramone 'Dada' Smith (drums), and Kawain Williamson (bass guitar) - and vocalists Deondra Riley and Daniel Dundas, Lloyd began one of Bob Marley's many songs about the importance of people to stop fighting and unite instead. The song set the tone for Lloyd's general message, "Believe in Jah (God), love life, love people."

By the time he ended the set an hour and 10 songs later, the audience was saturated by the message, which was delivered not only through the music, but also by Lloyd's between-songs talk to the audience. He spoke as much as he sang about love.

His own songs were Letter to Ingrid, Girl I Want You So Much, Blood on Your Hands (his first hit in Europe), Dancehall Queen (his first song on radio), Praise the King, and Pure Love. This last song, his latest single, he said, was written for and about his

10-year-old daughter and was the spark for the current Pure Love tour.

Lloyd closed his high-energy set with the popular Fly Away Home to Zion, at one time getting on a chair among the audience to sing.

ACTING CAREER

After the show, we caught up with Lloyd, who spoke to us about his anti-bullying crusade and his acting career.

"I love acting as much as singing," he had informed the audience earlier.

"I'm an anti-bullying ambassador for End Bullying Globally for the Leon Antonio Foundation," he said, "and I, Miss Jamaica Universe, Raymond Pryce, and others have been going across the island, talking to kids, spreading the love, telling them about not participating in bullying and not witnessing it without trying to intervene."

He said that his research indicated that all Jamaicans had seen acts of bullying, been bullied themselves, or had participated in bullying.

"I think it's why we have all this random violence in the society," Lloyd opined. "There's a lot of anger out there."

Lloyd said he had appeared in 17 films and TV series and had received help and encouragement from Jamaican theatre icons like Leonie Forbes, Louise Bennett, Oliver Samuels and Fae Ellington.

He is a member of the Screen Actors' Guild of America, he said, and because of that, he has to be careful about what films he appears in.

"I had to get a release from the union to do Royal Palm Estate (the Lennie Little-White TVJ series)," he said.

Asked what his favourite live theatre appearance was, he said he still remembered with pleasure his role in a Little Theatre Movement pantomime when he was 15 or 16 while a student at Kingston College.

"My greatest experience as an actor," he went on, "was probably in Return to Treasure Island for Disney. And I really enjoyed working with Denzel Washington in The Mighty Quinn. He taught me so much. He taught me that a talent (for acting) should never be taken for granted."