Photo credit: BBC Berkshire

The Messenger touched down in Reading to Headline this year's Womad festival and boy, what a show it was! But for those that didn't make it there, here's what happened:

It was showcase vibes all round so first up were the backing singers, three lovely sistas called The Far East Singers who sang a beautiful version of the Bunny Wailer classic Dreamland. Next up it was the turn of Sax man Dean Fraser to send shivers down all of our spines with his heart warming version of Redemption song which literally blew Womad away, the word ballistic sprang to mind when explaining the crowd reaction. Up next was Mickey General who sang some nice numbers including his smash, sinners, which went down well.

Now it was showtime, and as the compere rightly warned us: 'we ask to you extinguish all cigarettes, fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight as we prepare for blast off !". And blast off they did, Luci ran on stage screaming to the crowd and cartwheeling as he kicked off the show in spectacular style. The noise from the thousands gathered around the main stage was deafening, from years of going to Womad I'd never seen a reaction like this before and Luci made the most of this, jumping off the stage to greet fans whenever he felt to! You name a Luci tune, he must of played it, he rolled out all the classics: Jah is my friend, ulterior motive, sweep over my soul, over the hills, good god, lord give me strength, stay away (from the new album), it's me again jah, I will survive, who can it be, legalise it, your world and mine and many more. He slowed things down with an acoustic version of Guess what's happening and redemption song, but soon speed it up again, eventually finishing on 'In this thing together' which Luci left on, leaving the masses screaming for what seemed like forever! Time had run out and you had to feel for the guy whose job it was to tell the crowd that the show was done, as no one was going anywhere and the sheer noise was bordering on getting out of control!!! The very mixed range of people in the crowd didn't know what had hit them and it was great to see a good live show in Reading.

All in all a killer show from the messenger, there were enough professional video cameras on stage so watch out for a possible video release or maybe some coverage on BBC3. But if you've never seen Luci live before, then make sure you do as you don't know what your missing!

Honey Munster 2004