Its been close to a year since I’ve been to a good concert here on Guam, so I made it a point to attend the Rebelution event which was held at the Yigo Amusement Park last night. As usual the park was packed, the vibes were good, and the music was great.

For those of you who have never listened to Rebelution, they are are Reggae band based out of Santa Barbara, California. Their music is pretty distinct from most other reggae artists I have listened to, and in fact most people refer to their style of reggae as California Reggae.

“Apparently, California Reggae is hot. Stemming from a foundation of local support, Rebelution soared into iTunes Reggae Top 10 (album downloads), amongst some lofty company. Lofty like Bob, Stephen, and Damian Marley.” — Santa Barbara News-Press

The band was so successful with their “Courage to Grow” album, that within a week of its release it became one of the most downloaded albums on Itunes and eventually won the iTunes Editors Choice: Best Reggae Album for 2007.

To be honest, I don’t recall the names of any of the opening acts for the event. When I arrived, my wife and I along with some friends went looking for a nice spot to “camp” and I found myself doing more socializing than actual listening. From what I did hear, all opening acts sounded good and I distinctly remember a band with an actual trumpet section which I thought was pretty sick. Overall, it was a good showing from our local community.

When Rebelution finally hit the stage the crowd went wild and most of the audience were on their feet for the remainder of the night. The band opened up with “Feelin’ Alright” which set the tone for the rest of their set. I was highly impressed with Rebelution and I thought that they actually sounded better live than on tape. My only disappointment was that they seemed to cut their set short and missed a couple of anticipated tracks the crowd wanted to hear including their hit “Ordinary Girl”. I don’t understand why they would excluded some fan favorites during an event such as this one, but it was a fun concert nonetheless. Although we all chanted like crazy for one more song to be played, Rebelution proceeded off stage and unfortunately that ended our night.

Overall, I enjoyed the entire evening. Its always fun to be at a outdoors event listening to great music and hanging out with friends. It was announced that their would be another big event coming in November, I since its around my birthday, it looks like we’ll be attending that one too! ;)

Here are some tracks from Rebelution’s “Courage to Grow” Album. If you like what you hear, support the artists and purchase their album on Itunes, CDBABY ($14.00) or on Amazon ($21.49).

Rebelution – Attention Span

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Rebelution – Safe and Sound

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Rebelution – Ordinary Girl

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