Here comes summer!

It’s festival time and Jamaica has plenty: musical, cultural, herbal, literary, and culinary, animal, vegetable, and mineral.

We love a festival in Jamaica!

Our most famous side dish for fish is called festival! A tasty, twisted, deep-fried, cornmeal dumpling!

Think, three-inch hush puppy, and tell me you ain’t hungry now!

When it comes to music, we’ve got festivals like dirt.

Decades before Tessanne Chin won season five of The Voice, Jamaica had an annual festival song contest.

Winners had explosive titles, like: “Bam Bam”, “Ba Ba Boom” and “Boom Shacka Lacka”.

Desmond Dekker was right; Jamaica had “music like dirt!”

Reggae is a dish best served hot.

There’s nothing like being outdoors, as a throbbing bass and soft scratching guitar pump lilting rhythms of Reggae.

You hug your honey, swing your sweetie and rock to the rhythms as the stars cluster in a moonlit sky.

Top-of-my-chart music festivals

Rebel Salute is a high-class, old-school, Reggae celebration where all the artists are conscious, even if some audience members are unconscious.

Reggae Sumfest festivities last a week, with beach parties, boat parties, and a couple of massive concerts: Dancehall night and International night.

To quote Lionel, go “all night long!”

Find the best vantage point early

Go early evening. Pack a picnic, get a good vantage point to see the stage, reach the restrooms, and find your friends again.

When I say “good vantage point”, don’t set up camp six feet from the stage as you’ll get trampled!

Instead, set up in the middle of the field, where the crowd thins and there’s less of a crush.

There are alternative seating arrangements, like VIP areas, and the elevated boxes at the back and side of the field, but you’ll need friends in high places to get in.

There are high places you can watch the show with hangers-on. Literally!

The cheap seats are the tree seats, where nimble people don’t pay; they simply climb up and hang out for the night. Hopefully not like Keith Richard: fall asleep and out the tree.

Tips for Reggae Sumfest attendees

Once ensconced, buy a bucket!

Not to pee in!

To put beers on ice, keep your rum cool and chill a couple of energy drinks to get you through the night. That way you don’t have to keep going back to the bar.

There’s plenty of time to relieve your bladder, rest your feet, see and even make new friends or buy a cardboard reggae bed and take a nap between acts.

Not saying band equipment changes take long, but a friend of mine conceived and gave birth between Ziggy Marley and Third World one year.

Marvel when flames light the night sky as festival-goers light the spray from Baygon canisters.

I thought I’d been transported through a cloud of Ganja smoke and come out the other side in Game Of Thrones the first time I saw this! “Dragons!”

Leave early morning. As dawn breaks and the last act wraps, return to your hotel for breakfast, a swim, and sleep the day away.

Then do it all over again.

Marijuana festivals

If you want something more than mere music, we have Ganja festivals like Stepping High (which took a hiatus in 2020 so check the website for dates) and Cannabis Cup. You can see, smell, sample, and smoke sensimilla.

As Bob Marley sang: "Excuse me while I light my spliff. Spliff!”

Remember, contrary to popular belief, Ganja is not legal in Jamaica! So, don’t buy loads and carry them with you. You can always get more wherever you go!

Literary festivals

A definite date for your diary is the Calabash International Literary Festival in St. Elizabeth. It takes place every two years, so you’ve got time to plan.

Next stop 2023.

Food and film festivals

Go to a carnival of carbohydrates at the Trelawny Yam Festival and experience the energy that made Usain Bolt; dive into the Denbigh Agricultural Show; see films at the Greater August Town Film Festival, and the list goes on.

Whatever flavor of festival tickles your fancy, Jamaica has one to suit you!

Tony Hendriks;

Jamaican Paleface talking.

Blessed loveliness.