Tommy Wilson: Festival a tribute to reggae icon

Pat Spellman, organiser of the One Love Festival. Photo / Supplied

I first met members of the Rastafarian movement in Newport, Rhode Island during the America's Cup Challenge of 1984, when Alan Bond and his boxing kangaroos took the auld mug off "Dirty" Dennis Connor. We were all teamed up sanding and varnishing super yachts as a way of working our passage up and down the eastern coast of the United States on our big OE.

The Antiguan Rastas were the "shizel" when it came to combining the holy herb with the soothing sounds of reggae music and monotonous work - and sanding and varnishing teak was boring at best but I got a good insight into what a Rastafarian was and the message behind the music they listen to known as reggae.

Back in the day when Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia he was known as the "Black Messiah" or "Jah Rastafari" and his name carried a symbol of salvation for the poor and impoverished.

When he first came to Jamaica in 1966 it was like the coming of the Messiah for the poor and this is where Rita Marley, the wife of Bob Marley, converted to the Rastafarian faith - and "Uncle Bob", as he is affectionately known, became the father of reggae music.

It was and still is reggae that has introduced the Rastafarian movement to the world.

On Waitangi Day every year followers of the Rastafarian faith and lovers of the reggae music genre celebrate Bob Marley's birthday and for the first time this happened here in Tauranga Moana at the One Love Festival held at the Wharepai domain.

Championed by local DJ Pat Spellman and his Moana Radio station, under the guidance of Pato Entertainment, this superbly organised event brought 10,000 concertgoers and their families to Tauranga for two days of reggae, including the founding members of Bob Marley's band - The Wailers - who stole the show.

Hopefully it will become a stellar calendar event as there was no violence, no negative vibes and no nonsense as local police attending will attest to. Just a whole lot of One Love.

Sure, I was the oldest and possibly the straightest there, but the behaviour of a crowd fuelled by the "flava" of the holy herb - compared with a grog-fuelled crowd is a lesson we could all learn from.

It was an interesting comparison on my Waitangi weekend. It started at the dawn service held at Hopukiore (Mount Drury) and ended up under a full moon listening to the original Wailers at the One Love Festival and in between attending a great community day at Greerton where the multitudes got fed for free.

Now that was one love.

My understanding of celebrating Waitangi is a lot more about one love than it is about a one-way path to that one love and, after six sermons in a row, I was a little over being preached to on a morning deemed to be about celebration, not salvation.

This can be saved for those who want and need to be saved at a church service, not on the side of Wanakoire, when we are honouring and remembering those who walked their talk.

Thankfully, salvation came for me in the warm words spoken by Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy, followed by a superb session from Ngati Ranginui kapahaka group and the waka warriors' haka.

The answers may have been blowing in the wind on Waitangi morning but I didn't get to hear enough of them.

But not so at the One Love Festival. I find reggae music non-intrusive and the lyrics of its one love message a sweet sorbet, compared with the madness and sadness that surrounds us more and more in a self-centred world where the crisis of Isis and its radical religiosity is given far too much air time.

So what is Uncle Bob's message and what relevance does it have to Waitangi weekend?

Perhaps it is his famous quote: "Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet." This could well apply to the gospel preached at Mount Drury. Talking it is one thing, feeling it, another.

We all have our own understanding of God and I like to think you don't have to cross the sea to see the cross.

The key for me is I have a wonderful culture here in my own back yard that belongs to us all as New Zealanders.

I do not need to follow another culture or religion started by impoverished people on the other side of the world.

Waitangi weekend for me was all about One Love. Not just from above, but from each other here in Tauranga Moana.

-broblack@xtra.co.nz

Tommy Wilson is a best-selling local author and writer.