Blue King Brown is Australia’s most premier urban/roots/reggae crew who has supported renowned artists such as Santana, Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, Silverchair, The Cat Empire, Powderfinger, Michael Franti and Spearhead, John Butler Trio – just to name a few. They have grown so much over the years and being a fan one could not miss out on this final show.

Last night (and as usual) Sydney traffic was hectic and finding parking was worse. I ended up parking on the 8th level, three blocks away from the Metro. As a result, we missed out on Melbourne-based support act Diafrix for Blue King Brown’s Worldwize Tour. However, we made it just on time for the headline band. I was also in good company with four others who had little to no knowledge of who the band were; however I was confident they would walk out fully converted as a fan.

The entrance deliberately only saw half of the band members arrive on the dimmed-lit stage, devoid of the female vocalists including lead singer Natalie Pa’apa’a. With a long drum introduction that built the excitement, it eventually progressed into the first song of the show. This was the beginning of an epic night on the final show of the Worldwize tour in Sydney. Natalie and backing vocalists slowly progressed to the stage where the audience began to scream my ears off from behind me. However, I too continued that ripple affect towards the people in front of me.

Natalie introduced each individual band member in the Blue King Brown traditional manner where each one would perform a brief solo. The backing vocalists impressed the audience with their covers of old school songs such as “Sexual Healing” and reggae favourite “Could You Be Loved”. It was actually quite refreshing to see the backing vocalists which I was not used to seeing as part of Blue King Brown before; though I have seen Ngaiire perform in some of Sydney’s live music events before. Every one of them looked amazing and performed well and seemed to please everybody (which can be quite a difficult task) - plus hints of weed aromas snuck up from behind me which could be another factor.

Simultaneously, it was disappointing not having the familiar backing singers Nadee, Jess and Hailey present as well as Emily the trombonist, since the last time I saw them perform at Raggamuffin reggae festival in Brisbane in 2010( perhaps). Cesar on electric guitar ripped it up with his epic riffs during his solo. The Latino percussionists also got me shaking my imaginary shakers with them. I felt like I was part of the band for some time – wishful thinking.

Natalie pulled out her aged (and trademark) electric guitar. She also did her little session with her conga drum which was quite entertaining to watch especially by the looks on the fans-in-the-making’s faces. The band also played some old school BKB tracks such as “Moment of Truth” and “Water” which the audience seemed to have a great time singing along to the familiar lyrics. Well, I know I did.

Blue King Brown are also known as a band for their acknowledgement and activism for social and political issues, including climate change and child trafficking. The audience reciprocated Natalie’s passion for human rights and social justice issues by responding enthusiastically with applause.

One could not disregard the fact there was a vibrant and positive transference of energy between the audience and the band throughout the entire night. The rich diversity of musicians that have strong sense of unity is the beauty of this band. Thus they are quite capable of creating such consistently vibrant atmosphere. It was surprising at how much energy they still had that night, as this show in Sydney was the last one of the Australian tour and I could only imagine that there would be some kind of exhaustion and relief of being the last show of the tour. Hence, I did catch one of the band members yawning, in which I empathised with anyway. If I was in their shoes, I doubt that I would still be standing. Big ups to every one of them!

As the band ended the show with their last song, Natalie thanked the crowd for coming along to take part of their Worldwize tour and eventually the band left the stage. The audience repetitively begged “Encore!” until the band came again with the audience roaring for more. Blue King Brown returned to the stage and Natalie expressed her gratitude and seemed quite pleased to continue playing some more songs prior to calling it a night.

It was evident that there was a consistency of positive energy which left the crowd in a complete state of euphoria (except for the killjoy dude in the audience being a douche not only to us but to other people). Furthermore, tonight I have received feedback from my four companions who came to watch Blue King Brown for the first time and are currently still buzzing. Told ya so!