Date: August 1st, 2014
Band Link: ziggymarley.com

Ziggy Marley made his return to NYC on Friday night at a sold out Irving Plaza. Ziggy has always been one of my favorite reggae musicians, well besides his famous Father of course.

The last time I saw Ziggy Marley (and the Melody Makers) was in 1996 in Middletown, NY at the Smokin’ Grooves tour with Busta Rhymes, Cypress Hill, A Tribe Called Quest and The Fugees. That was a great concert then and even though the Ziggy isn’t playing with his siblings anymore, this was still an awesome concert!

Like with all reggae shows I attend, I always mistakenly arrive way too early. The doors were 8pm and I didn’t get inside until 8:40ish because of waiting for the list. Then a DJ was playing until about 9:30. I haven’t been to Irving Plaza for a month or so but they added in some VIP side stage thing. I was kind of annoyed by that because I used to sit in that spot all the time! I don’t know how many spots this club is going to need to for VIPs. They already have the balcony pretty much. The space is shrinking left and right there. As much as I love Irving Plaza, I felt this show should have been held at a bigger venue. But anyway, Ziggy and the band didn’t come on until 10:10ish. I felt like I waited around more than seeing the actual show. With that said, Ziggy put on an amazing show!

I had the first three songs to shoot in the pit, which ended up being “Love is My Religion,” “Wild and Free” and one of the Melody Makers’ songs “Conscious Party.” For being a fan of Ziggy since the late 80s when “Tomorrow People” came out, it was cool to hear some Melody Makers songs. I was hoping he was going to play “Give A Little Love” since that’s my favorite song by Ziggy but it wasn’t meant to be that night.

Judging by all the setlists out there, it looked like Ziggy’s sets have been relatively the same for the most part. A bit of mixture of his solo stuff, Melody Makers songs and a handful of Bob Marley songs like “No Woman, No Cry,” “Roots Rock Reggae,” “One Love” and more. Speaking of Bob Marley, seeing Ziggy perform is like watching Bob perform. The way he does his mannerisms and dancing around; not to mention that he’s his son and looks and sounds like him too. Like Father like Son. You’ll get the Bob Marley and the Wailers songs at a Ziggy show but there’s more to that than those songs. Ziggy has had his fair share of success (besides just music – look up Ziggy’s organic products) but his solo material has been fantastic. He played songs like “I Don’t Wanna Live on Mars,” “Moving Forward,” “Give It Away” and “Fly Rasta.”

Sadly, I wasn’t able to stay for the entire concert and cut out before the encore started. Since I live in Jersey City, I have to base my schedule on the stupid PATH train. The last few songs I saw Ziggy play include “Tomorrow People,” “One Love” and “Changes.” It’s been way too long since seeing Ziggy and I hope I get to see him perform again a lot sooner than 18 years!