Mel Cooke, Star Writer

Students from Rousseau Primary School enjoy the activities at 'Tenky Miss Lou', held in Gordon Town square on Saturday. - Nathaniel Stewart

The chants of 'Gordon Town' went up as Voicemail adjusted their weekday countdown to Bembe and the voices rang out "my Gordon Town girls" as Christopher Martin adjusted his ode to the Jamaican Girl on Saturday night.

The rural St Andrew community, heavily battered by Tropical Storm Gustav, has long been cleared of debris, and the river which had swollen to claim lives is back at its normal level.

Sense of liveliness

But the sense of liveliness which Saturday's Miss Lou birthday celebrations (which had been postponed because of Gustav) brought was a new level of recovery for the village.

And after the tours and cake-cutting during the day, in the evening, music pulsed from the speakers and the bounceabout jigged to the energy of the children. It was not only for the residents; a line of cars approaching the square indicated that there was many a visitor in the large crowd.

Shone brightly

The risen stars of Christopher Martin and Nickeisha Barnes shone brightly, the latter standing tall and smiling on multicoloured shoes to open with Amazing Grace. She demanded "call my name over and over again" and dramatised being a shy girl in like fashion. She swung a hand behind her back, pointed to someone at the front of the crowd and said "is you me like", to chuckles from the crowd.

The women agreed

Turn Your Lights Down Low, complete with the rap, came before No One and the women agreed wholeheartedly that "what goes round comes around".

"It done!" Barnes said to disrespect from men and walked off for an emphatic closure.

Martin duly gave it to them right and declared that 'big people' were in the audience so he had to do something for them. But his Otis Redding double, followed by a Sam Cooke, sent a surge of ecstacy through the youngsters in the audience. Those doubled when he took off his shirt to leave a merino hugging a toned body.

Men paid attention

Men paid attention to all sides of the stage and the audience, the men supporting "nah go change nah go bow" and he teased with a line from his Gallis song before leaving.

Naturally, Martin was recalled to finish it, again to extremely good effect.

One member of Voicemail took off his large chains as a precaution and with good reason, for although the STAR did not see any fall, the women did their best to get a handful and more of the trio. They brought the moves and the songs, from the 'part the crowd' to the 'Wacky Dip', igniting a dancing fever that saw a circle of girls cheering on a little boy in their midst who was dropping moves in the street.

There was gospel

In the concert's beginning there was gospel, Dwayne Green and Justine Rookwood delivering it in song, with Donique Davis and a team from Victory Gospel Hall doing the same in sign language, using glowing gloves on a darkened stage.

It was the soul-stirring voice of Joan Fleming, though, which really moved the audience with He's Alright and a slow version of Bam Bam, the audience a chorale on the "ah ah" refrain.