Tessanne rocks crowd

SINGER Tessanne Chin has always been known for her vocal prowess - those soaring pipes which she has used to draw in listeners on tracks such as Black Book, Messenger and her runaway hit Hideaway.

However, on Tuesday night she added versatile to her list of accolades.

At the third in the series, Behind the Screen held at Usain Bolt's Tracks and Records in St Andrew, Chin delivered another of her signature performance in front of a capacity audience.

Her repertoire for the more than one hour set included her works spiced with tasty injections of rock, house, reggae and even dancehall tracks.

Dressed in black from head-to-toe, she stepped on the stage at close to 11:00 pm and immediately began spewing some of her lesser-known tracks.

This allowed Chin's father Richard, who was the night's sound engineer to get rid of the acoustic cobwebs which plagued the opening of her set.

With the audio challenges sorted out a sign of the performance to come was signalled with a masterful reggae rendition of Hoobastank's The Reason. This track seemed tailor-made for her vocal make up as she held the long notes beautifully, at all times perfectly supported by her two backing vocalists.

Accompanied by a trio of musicians on guitar, bass and congas, Chin then went into a segment of the show she introduced as songs she likes to sing.

This playlist included her rock tracks When I'm With You and Messenger; Sean Paul's She Doesn't Mind complete with the deejay segments, Rihanna's We Found Love (In a Hopeless Place); Where Have You Been; and a duet with sister Tami on You and Me.

Arguably the performance of the night came with Chin's take on Vegas' club banger Bruk It Dung.

Starting with smooth vocals it took some time for patrons to recognise track. She then slipped into deejay mode , just before engaging her audience with a few dance moves which highlighted the best physical assets of her multi-racial background.

This high was maintained with a rendition of Affairs of the Heart by Damian 'Junior Gong' Marley's , an artiste with whom she says she would love to record.

The night climaxed with a stellar performance of Hideaway.

Behind the screens which has seen performances from Tifa and Protojé, continues next Tuesday with the dub poetry quartet, Nomadz.

(from Jamaica Observer)