Where to begin? When dealing with Lee Perry it's usually best to start from Scratch, however much has been written about the man, from the recently published biography People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, by David Katz, to websites such as http://www.upsetter.net/ and http://www.levity.com/figment/dub.html.

For the purposes of this review I shall forgo the retelling of his life story, because even in brief it would take too long to mention even just the cream of the musical acts that have worked with Mr. Perry over the last four decades.

I shall tell instead how I came to be such a fan of his work. Already before I was familiar with the name Lee Scratch Perry, I was very fond of various tunes he had produced "Kaya", "Small Axe", "Soul Rebel" by The Wailers, and Junior Marvin's classic "Police And Thieves". It wasn't until I heard English band The Fall in session on the John Peel show in 1992 performing "Kimble", that the name of Lee Scratch Perry entered my sphere of awareness.

"Kimble" inspired by the sixties TV series The Fugitive, cast Perry as "Kimble the Nimble" who warned any would-be cheats that he'd make them "trimble" and that anything he hit "always split" illustrating this point with the sound of several glass bottles being smashed throughout the track. There was something about the simplicity in his straightforward but playful logic which really delighted me.

The decisive moment for me regarding Perry's genius, came with eighties album "Secret Laboratory", which pictured Perry on the LP sleeve in full regal costume sitting on a throne in the Swiss Alps, singing about the destruction of The IMF, The Mafia, The Queen Of England, The Pope, vampires, witches and warlocks and various governments, while proclaiming himself to be an alien from outer space, Father Christmas, Criostos and even a mouse! This was my kind of music with my kind of themes, and so began my personal quest to discover as much of the back catalogue as I possibly could - the fact that the Beastie Boys had begun championing his work was a great help. Over the ensuing years I would read about Lee Perry performing in England or on mainland Europe at the summer festivals, but never an appearance in Ireland, so in 1998 I availed of an opportunity to attend the Reading Festival where I got to see him in action on a glorious August afternoon.

One of my past-times is to assist in a club run by some friends. Each week they painstakingly assemble their sound system in the cellar of a certain Dublin Bar and play a selection of their reggae discs, sometimes bringing over English crews. The equipment is constantly upgraded, and it currently enjoys a reputation as one of Dublin's best clubs. The volume of sound which can vibrate a pint of beer off a shelf is very easy to dance to, you can even feel your clothes juddering in time to the bass. This full-on sound attracts reggae enthusiasts from near and far.

Recently, Neal Fraser a.k.a. The Mad Professor was one such visitor to the club, although I saw him mingling with the regulars I didn't realise who he was. Afterwards people said he was talking about returning to Dublin to do a show with none other than Scratch himself.

There was some development on the Scratch & Prof. rumours a few weeks later, when a longhaired young man asked me a question which I mistakenly heard, due to the noise of the sound system, as "Is it okay if I throw a few flowers around?"

"Flowers?" I thought, that might not be a bad idea; after all, the fragrance might help conceal the smell of stale beer in the place… "What kind of flowers are they?" I enquired. "No, not flowers.. Fliers!" he corrected me, "For Lee Perry." Barely able to believe my ears I told him he could throw around all the Lee Perry fliers he wanted.

The following two weeks at the club saw the return of the same guy with the fliers, he was Biggrevs of Biggrevs Promotions, I tried to extract every last ounce of information from him concerning the forthcoming Irish debut of The Upsetter and told him that it would mean a lot to me if I could get a chance to meet him.

On the last Wednesday before the show Biggrevs and his girlfriend Elaine dropped into the reggae club and he told me that the show had sold out completely and he had been getting about thirty requests a day for tickets from friends. He told me that Perry would be arriving in town on the day of the gig at about five thirty in the evening and would be staying at the Morrison Hotel, but he couldn't guarantee that I would get to meet him.

Finally the scheduled date of the show arrived, it was a nice September afternoon, and I left work early and headed down to The Morrison Hotel with a disposable camera hoping to get some photos of The Upsetter. As I got close to the hotel I could see some people at the corner with instrument cases who looked like possible associates of Perry's, my heart-rate doubled as I walked towards them. I noticed a familiar face, Elaine, Biggrevs girlfriend.

"Hi!" she said, "These are Lee Perry's backing band, The Robotics," I shook hands with them and asked if they were the same backing band I'd seen in Reading two years previously, and the keyboard controller told me they were. I'd really liked their opening number which was like a rocked-up version of The Six Million Dollar Man theme tune. The keyboard player sang a bit of it while playing "air-keyboard" and asked me if that was the tune I meant. I asked Elaine if there was any sign of The Upsetter. "No," she told me shaking her head, "No sign at all, so far."

I decided to wait in the cafe next door for him to make an appearance. A stretch limo pulled up outside the hotel and Elaine and The Robotics got in and away they went so I continued to wait. Eventually it was closing time in the cafe, I decided to move outside to wait just a little longer, I was starting to get fed up when suddenly Biggrevs came hurtling around the corner looking very anxious speaking to someone on a mobile phone. "How's it going Grevs ?" I asked. "Not good," he told me, his brow knitted with worry. "He's missed his flight from Zurich, the plane was about to take off, when two customs guys boarded and brought him away to be searched. While they searched him his plane took off, and now he has to wait for the next flight which isn't until 8.30. He'll be going straight from the airport to the stage, so there's no point hanging around here."

I decided to go home, have something to eat and call into some friends who were also going to the gig and eventually I headed down to Vicar St.

Outside the venue, a lot of people without tickets had gathered. I went into the venue just as Ambulance were completing their support slot - they sounded good. There were two guys twiddling with banks of machines, creating tape loops on the spot, building up electronic rhythms through various analogue machines with another fellah "John Of God" drumming along on a conventional drumkit, sounding similar to some of Lee Perry's seventies dub-style recordings. Later on they explained to me that they had gone for a more dub oriented sound because of the nature of that night; normally their set would be more influenced by electronic dance acts like Autechre.

There followed a long interval before the main act. Elaine and Grevs were coming and going from the backstage area, Elaine gave me regular progress reports: "He's not here!", "He's on his plane!", "He's landed!", "He's in the country!", and finally "He's backstage and will be ready to start in a few minutes."

At around this time the Mad Professor emerged from the backstage door and started heading for the mixing desk. He was wearing a velvet hat and cape, he looked like a funky version of Henry VIII.

The house lights went down and The Robotics entered the stage to a warm round of applause, shouts and whistles. They were a three piece of bass, drums and keyboards who also double as backing vocalists. They began to play, the sound was loud and clear, I could feel the sleeves of my jacket shaking to the beat, it was a familiar riff… Bob Marley's "Exodus". People were starting to dance, the smell of grass began to waft around the packed house and people roared as Lee Scratch Perry arrived on the stage, he seemed to be in fine fettle shouting out his "HALLO!"s to the audience. Then he started to sing: "Come to my party! My reggae-techno party! Come to my party! A crumble-wicked party." Without any break, "Exodus" segued into "Techno Party", the title track of his first new album of the millennium, jointly produced with The Mad Professor, reggae rhythms infused with funky jungle, hip hop, break-beats and techno.

The way The Robotics were recreating the new material in a live context was impressive. The Mad Professor was loading on the sound-fx, echo reverb and delay on all the different instruments, vocoders on the vocal mikes, sampling Lee Perry's live singing before mixing the samples back into the songs as they were being played. The man is a wizard at the controls.

The second number was "Introducing Myself " from the mid-eighties LP Millionaire Liquidator. In this version he stated his purpose as a legaliser of the ganja tree who sends all politicians to Hell. He went along the front of the stage to shake hands with the audience, some of them tried to pull him into the crowd, but the feisty sexagenarian wriggled free from their grips. He obliged a few people with autographs, kneeling down to sign pieces of paper on the floor of the stage and then proceeded to sprinkle droplets of water from his bottle of Evian onto the heads of the people along the front row, thanking the crowd "for believing in Jah Rastafari who is Love."

"Now I'm gonna do some techno hip hop" he announced and started hopping around on one foot with one of his hands on his hip saying "Hippy! Hoppy! Hippy! Hoppy!" before setting "Inspector Gadget" in motion, a song inspired by the animated TV show of the same name. Perry produced a musical cigarette lighter with flashing red and green lights to relight a partially smoked joint someone had given him. "I recharge the batteries for this with power from my Secret Laboratory" and lo! The Robotics played "Secret Laboratory" with distorted synthesised backing vocals: "Rocking and reeling and having a ball / swinging and swaying strait jacket and all." With The Upsetter, what you get on the record and what you get live are completely different, he has a shamanic style, ranting and chanting, touched by The Holy Spirit, very influenced by one of Jamaica's Pentechostal churches, the Pocomaniacs. When he gets going, he really gets going .

During "Jungle Safari" he offered to show the crowd how to dance, and asked them all to jump. With limited success, he'd shout "Jump!" then he'd jump. Some people, including me, jumped. "Wriggle on ya belly! I wanna see ya wriggle on ya belly!" Unsurprisingly no one obliged him with this strange request, so he jumped down onto his belly and proceeded to wriggle from one side of the stage to the other and then back again whilst shouting "rrR-RUB-A-DUB-A-DUB!" and roaring like a lion, The Mad Professor duly sampled these and other noises and played them back into the live mix.

And so the evening's entertainment rolled on. There was one song I didn't recognise at all, more speeches about Jah Rastafari, Love and Ganja - "the tree of life", there was an unexpected treat - a version of "Curly Locks", one of the early Upsetter hits. "Curly Locks, your father is a pork chop, and he don't like you dealin' with me." I thought it was a short rendition, obviously Perry did too as he jokingly scolded his backing band, "Robotics! Why do you hate the fans? Why do you play so short?"

One of the highlights of the set for me was "Crooks In The Business " from the current TechnO PARTY! album. The album version is an attack on people in the music business who he feels have robbed him, but live he decided instead to attack the crooks in the business who are "selling hash too dear and selling herb too dear" - a very relevant issue! "Crooks in the business! I know you all, big & small I see you all, I can see through a nine inch wall!" He received a superbly crafted joint from the crowd, which he took several pulls on, before spinning around to exhale a downwardly spiralling plume of smoke rendering him almost completely invisible.

He also gave an impressive display of the martial art he calls "Fu Kung", kicking the air with a "Wap! Wap! Wap!" and chopping the air with a "Zap! Zap! Zap!" The crowd-pleaser of the night was "War Inna Babylon" a song written about the virtual civil war in seventies Jamaica where rival political factions were shooting each other in the streets. It was great to hear all the Dubliners, male and female, singing along for this one, "War inna Babylon / tribal war inna Babylon / it sipple out deh / it slide out deh " ("sipple " is a variation of slippery in the Jamaican patois, in this instance it means "treacherous"), and as usual Scratch took off on a typical impromptu version, saying "War inna Ireland! Lee Scratch Perry doesn't want no war inna Ireland ", this delighted the crowd who all joined in singing "No more war inna Ireland ", this was in contrast to the version I'd heard in 1998 where he started listing all the countries that had been bombed by the U.S. that month, including an accidental bombing of Pakistan who had just become a nuclear power "War inna Sudan ,war in Afghanistan, war inna Pakistan", no matter how crazy the man may seem, he still manages to read the newspapers and keep himself well informed on global events.

He did a version of The Staple Singers "I'll Take You There" which he's renamed as "Come Go With Lee", where he urged his listeners to "fly up in the sky like a butterfly," amongst other things. He took a pint of Guinness from someone down the front of the crowd and held it high over his head in a Statue Of Liberty pose, and paraded the black beverage around the stage like a trophy, before taking a hearty swig which saw half the pint vanish from the glass in a single gulp, and handed the drink back to its original owner. A proud moment for Guinness drinkers, but mostly he stuck to the Evian, removing his CD festooned custom cap to shower his head with mineral water and drying himself off with a big fluffy white towel.

He said "Thank you! Good night!" and left the stage, but after almost ten minutes of the crowd calling out for more, stomping their feet, clapping their hands, screaming and blowing whistles, the house lights came on and the sound crew started dismantling the gear on stage. The show was over. I went over to a much calmer looking Grevs to try to work my way backstage but he told me that Scratch had already left.

I got talking to the bassist of The Robotics later on, and I said that it was great to have this once in a lifetime chance to see such a show, and he said "Oh no, there'll be more shows here for sure, he'll be back." And so will I.

Picture of a "hippy hoppy" Lee Scratch P also by Cormac

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