Pozitive Vybrationz at Couples 21st

Falmouth-based steel-fusion band Pozitive Vybrationz worked up a storm and effectively stole the show at the Couples Swept Away 21st anniversary party on Friday night in Negril.

Guests were enraptured by the octet’s musical skills, which were even sweeter with the fusion of pan, bass guitar, and bass drums, as they churned out Afrobeats reggae, and even hip-hop instrumentals.

From the outset, the group of youngsters was the centre of attention, but the performance rose to fever pitch when members of the group, one by one and two by two, pranced offstage and engaged the hotel’s own entertainment coordinators in a spur-of-the-moment dance-off.

The flurry of cell phones that were whipped out and the smiles that etched the faces of the delighted tourists was living proof that authentic, contemporary Jamaican music performances and dancehall moves are well appreciated by the island’s international visitors. It was also testament to the reason the group copped five gold medals and the instrumentalist Champions of the World Award at the 2016 World Championships of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

The biggest uproar occurred when one of the group’s female members, Victoria Smith, did a split and then moved across the dance floor in that position. As the 19-year-old performed her other dance moves, the audience cheered with wild abandon.

When the group’s three-hour stint was over, the band’s supervisor and bass player, Roxroy Reid, told Hospitality Jamaica that the band which was established in 2015, was the brainchild of Chief Executive Officer Clive White, a music arranger and builder of steel drums who was also a member of a popular steel band before branching off on his own and functioning as a one-man band for a year before recruiting new members.

“We have eight members in Jamaica because we are local and international. The other members tour, but they also work in hotels like we do in other countries,” Reid said.

“At first, we started as a one-man band, and then he added drummer and another steel pan player, and they got a professional keyboard player. So each of the musicians taught the younger generation,” he added.

Reid said that the name of the band was coined from a “known Bob Marley quote”. The Jamaica-based half of the group is contracted to play at Couples Negril every other Friday and is made up of young adults from across the island ranging from ages 19 to 26. The band also performs at a plethora of other hotels and major corporate functions across the island.