With two performances in the United States recently, Mr. Vegas showed his appeal in two key and vastly different age and income groups, one is the coveted demographic of Hispanic under 17 teenyboppers and the other is that of the loyal over 30 Jamaican reggae-dancehall lovers.
The performances came back-to-back in New York and showed the incredible currency and continued appeal of Mr. Vegas after 10 years in the business.
Performing on Tuesday night, June 30 at the East Manor club in Queens, Vegas gave a dizzying performance in front of a screaming crowd of 1,500 Hispanic teenagers, many of them not more than 16 years old. With songs such as the Billboard chart-burner Heads High, Pull Up, Hot Wuk and Hot Gal No Fight Over Man he had the teenagers in a literal frenzy throughout most of the performance, each song provoking a crescendo of screams. Security guards had to prevent some over-enthusiastic girls from jumping onstage to do a booty dance-off during the Hot Wuk segment.
Some even tried to shed their clothing and had to be restrained from doing so and escorted out of the club by security personnel. Mr. Vegas has always had an incredible appeal with the Hispanic psychographic, and has appeared on several Reggaeton mixtapes, especially after his Pull Up song inspired Pitbull to score a major US chart hit with Culo which has a similar melody.
On the following night, July 1 at the Fish Eye Bar in Brooklyn, Mr. Vegas showed the complete range of his skills as he delivered a mature set that ran the gamut of music from R & B classics to reggae favourites to his modern era dancehall hits.
He started off his set with When You Love Someone, a Michael Bolton ballad, before delivering great renditions of Baby I’m Missing You, and Babyface’s Everytime I Close My Eyes.
“You have some people who listen to the real music, who love the real music , tonight we’re going to find how much you know about real music, some man doan know how romance a girl with the real music, dem only want come inna the Ramping Shop,” he joked to raucous laughter from the females in the audience. He then sang What Am I Living For? and then did a tribute to Michael
Jackson with Hold Me before segueing into raunchy lyrics, ‘Bun It All Day, Bun It All Day’, and a little ode to the weed.
Then veteran singer Sammi Dread came onstage and told Vegas that Demus was in the house, He invited him on and he immediately bussed the place with his trademark gruff voice. Mr. Vegas specifically requested the dancehall classic Ruff Neck Chicken and Demus earned a big forward with some sexual advice regarding the lubricating properties of Vaseline. The girls hollered their approval.
After Demus exited the stage, Vegas continued with his set, and bigged up stalwarts of the music like Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Pinchers, Shabba, Josey Wales who paved the way. “Yu have some people who disresepect the elders, that’s why dem mash up after two months inna the business,” he said.
He touched a piece of Barrington Levy’s timeless classic, Prison Oval Rock and the crowd roared, and then they sang along as he led them through another Levy favourite, Too Experienced.
Then the tempo picked up immediately with the Dutchie Pot riddim, and he belted out Tek Weh Yuself, with a medley of songs such as Heads High, the classic Murder She Wrote,This weekend, Mr. Vegas will be returning to the familiar stomping grounds of Orlando tonight July 4th for a show. The last time he was in Orlando, he was one of the top performers at DJ ProStyles birthday party, two months ago.
