How to go
What: Dayton Reggae Festival, featuring ReggaeInfinity, Seefari, Demolition Crew and others
Where: Dave Hall Plaza Park, Fourth and Jefferson streets, Dayton
When: 1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 31
Cost: Free
More info: 937-333-8400 or www.downtowndayton.org
One of the big draws at the 27th annual Dayton Reggae Festival at Dave Hall Plaza Park on Sunday, Aug. 31, is the performance by headliners ReggaeInfinity from Columbia, S.C. However, equally notable is the fact this year marks the first time the event has featured four hometown acts.
Music begins at 1 p.m. with an opening set from ReggaeInfinity leader Haile Iya Israel, who may be familiar to longtime reggae fans.
“Haile is an old friend of mine,” said Seefari leader Tom Carroll, the region’s leading champion of roots reggae since the early 1980s. “He’ll be opening the show with a solo set and then he’ll be closing the festival with his band ReggaeInfinity. He’s originally Jamaican and grew up in Cincinnati. He was actually a member of my old band Scales of Justice back in the day, and I know he played the Dayton Reggae Festival playing drums with me once or twice.
“He played with Sankofa and he was their singer for a while,” Carroll said. “Haile’s been a guitar player on and off for years for the famous Jamaican artist Ras Michael so he gets around. I’m real excited he’s going to be playing the festival this year. It’s always great when we can get those kinds of bands coming through.”
Other festival performers include hometown favorites Seefari, Demolition Crew, Jah Soul and Jonny Dreads and the Mystiks.
“We’ve got all these great local bands now,” Carroll said. “We’ve got quite the reggae scene going on right now. Jah Soul, Demolition Crew and Jonny Dreads are really going out there and making a lot of great music. Everybody is jamming with each other and different members are jumping from band to band.
“It’s really feeling like a scene,” he said. “I can remember back in the day when we might have two bands that were local. I remember (former organizer) Jim Nichols trying to find local reggae bands, and there weren’t any besides us. Now we’ve got plenty.”
Carroll, who has been playing music locally for more than three decades, says the growth of the local scene is reflective of what’s occurring nationally and internationally.
“You’ve really got a big resurgence of reggae,” he said. “It’s not as much in the Midwest as out on the West Coast, East Coast and the southeast. Reggae rock is really becoming big, and they’ve got their own little scene. It kind of goes with reggae, but it also goes with rock. It’s become a really big boost to the reggae scene.”
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