Review: PURE Party Was An ‘Excellent Event’
[Written by Mikaela Ian Pearman]
The final party I attended before hitting the road for Bermuda Carnival was PURE. It’s organised by my good friend Rowan of Wild Apache Promotions and his team always does a stellar job.
This year, the artists set to perform were Queen of Bacchanal Destra Garcia and the Dancehall Princess Shenseea. Destra has performed in Bermuda a few times and is a veteran soca artist. Shenseea hadn’t performed here yet so the anticipation is high.
I went to PURE with my hubby after we attended Glow. We arrived about 11pm and took advantage of the full buffet in VIP and I grabbed a few bottles of water. I needed to be fresh for the road the next day so no drinking.
Mista Genius was on stage playing reggae and dancehall before MC Qianemon came to the stage to introduce a few new Bermudian artists including iPree, Chinyere, Ponaflex and Mugzy D Dancer.
I loved that Bermudian artists were given a platform; Ponaflex had dancers with him, which elevated his set and Mugzy is always fun to watch since he’s so passionate.
Not long after, Destra hit the stage opening with “Soca Family”. The last time she was in Bermuda, she fell on stage and broke her ankle. This time, she was absolutely amazing. Her energy is incredible, and her voice is just as good as it was 10 plus years ago. She truly is the Queen!
Destra’s songs included “Max It Up”, “Dip and Wine”, “I Dare You”, “Lucy”, Bonnie and Clyde” and “Carnival”. During Lucy, she encouraged the audience to be a soca choir with her as she directed them. It was a lot of fun.
At one point she brought a guy on stage to dance with her and kudos to him for keeping up, especially when she jumped on top of him! Destra is one of the best in the game and her performance showed why she’s had longevity in the soca game.
After Destra, DJ Rusty G performed with an energetic set of soca hits including a Kes the Band dub of Svannah Grass – except it was Bermuda Grass. I loved it and the audience went wild. I do wish his set was longer because he’s always incredible.
Bermudian artist JayThree jumped on stage to her song “Feeling For Ya” and performed a few other songs with dancers. Her energy was also great.
And then it was time for the main act – Shenseea. I will say I thought it was weird that the veteran, Destra, performed before the newbie, but I understand that all the youngins were there to see Shenseea.
And she was worth it. Coming on stage dressed in black with sunglasses on, Shenseea looked like the boss she always claims to be. The crowd was hype from the minute she stepped on until she stepped off.
She came on stage to her hit “ShengYeng Anthem” and performed “Blessed”, “Trending Gyal”, “Nothing Dem Nuh Have Ova Mi” and more. The crowd sang along with her word for word.
The highlight of her set was bringing girls up on stage to dance and then getting the audience to vote on the best dancer. It added such a fun element.
The only negative was Shenseea only performed for about 20 minutes and rushed off stage without thanking the crowd. It seemed it bit weird, considering this was her first visit to the island, but she did say she wasn’t feeling well so maybe that’s the reason.
Regardless, PURE was an excellent event per usual and I applaud the organisers for excellent execution.
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Lets be real Shenseea was only on stage for 20 mins we were singing majority of the songs for her then what came out her mouth “I heard Bermudians don’t like dance hall” who lying to her? for paying $150 we should have received a better show artists always come here feeling they can give us a short sweet performance they go anywhere else they have to get back on stage and give the people what they paid for but here in Bermuda we always get taken advantage of and pay the most!
I went to see Destra and of course wasn’t disappointed. She should have closed the show which would have definitely set the pace for those heading to Jouver’t after. Had Shenseea been my main reason for going, I would have been really upset.