Stephen Marley’s ‘Babylon By Bus’ Summer Tour To Commence On May 26 At Cali Roots Fest
Skip Marley, his uncle Ziggy and their compatriot Kabaka Pyramid will be joining Medication singer Stephen Marley for four of the 19 rescheduled shows on the singer’s Babylon by Bus tour, which is set to commence on May 26 in the United States.
On Saturday, Stephen announced the new dates which will see him journeying across the United States. The tour, which was named after Bob Marley’s promotional tour for his 1978 Babylon By Bus album, was rescheduled last August, when Stephen postponed it due to the developments in the pandemic.
The shows will feature Stephen’s own songs spanning his four-decade career along with tracks from his father’s extensive catalogue. The tour will now start at the Cali Roots Fest on May 26 and end on July 27 in Vienna Virginia.
“Announcing the Babylon By Bus Summer Tour 2022 setting off this May!! Who’s coming along for the ride?” Stephen noted on Friday.
Babylon By Bus Summer Tour will feature a total of six California dates, along with performances in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota and New York. Stephen is set to showcase a mixture of his own songs spanning his four-decade career along with tracks from his father Bob Marley’s extensive catalogue.
Bob Marley’s Babylon by Bus album was recorded live from the 10,000-capacity Pavillon de Paris concerts over three nights, from June 25 to 27 in 1978, during his Kaya Tour.
Among its 13 tracks are Positive Vibration, Punky Reggae Party, Exodus, Stir It Up, Rat Race, Concrete Jungle, Lively Up Yourself, War/No More Trouble, Is This Love and Jammin.
The album reportedly charted at number two in the United States, and reached number 40 in the UK, which was by Marley’s standards, disappointing. His promotional 19-show tour for the album though, had a massive impact in Asia and Oceania where he did eight and 11 concerts respectively.
Unlike Stephen’s tour which is being concentrated in the United States, his father’s Babylon by Bus Tour was aimed at popularizing himself and Reggae music in Asia and Oceania.
According to Udiscovermusic, that tour began in Japan on April 5, 1979, and ended in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 6 May 1979. It was initially to have begun with two shows in the Ivory Coast in Africa, in mid-March, but both concerts were cancelled.
The first leg reportedly led Marley through Japan where he performed for the first time, while the second leg took place in various parts of Oceania, including New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii.
According to Udiscovermusic, Bob arrived in Tokyo on April 5, for the first of six sold-out shows, where he and his band were “greeted by mobs of mildly hysterical fans and insistent paparazzi, requiring them hastily to convene a press conference before they’d even left the airport”. This they said, “laid the foundations for a thriving Reggae scene that quickly took root in Japan”.
In Australia and New Zealand, the reception was the same. There, Bob visited the Maori and Aborigine communities, who welcomed him and his Rastafarian compatriots as kindred spirits and hailed him as a saviour.
Babylon by Bus, although it was Bob’s first and only visit to those regions has been credited for its massive impact in propelling Reggae in that part of the world where the music prior to that, had only been heard on records or on the radio.
“As before in Europe and North America, Marley and the Wailers came, saw and conquered, turning reggae from a distant curiosity into a focal part of the popular musical fabric,” Udiscovermusic, noted.
Stephen, who will celebrate his 50th birthday on April 20, began performing live at age seven, with his siblings Ziggy, Sharon and Cedella as a part of the Melody Makers, where he served as vocalist, guitarist and drummer.
In 1980 he performed with Ziggy on stage along with Bob, at a free concert at Rufaro Stadium in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, to honour the nation’s Independence Celebration. He also made an appearance on Reggae Sunsplash at age 10 in 1981 where he sang Sugar Pie with the Melody Makers.
Stephen is also an eight-time Grammy Award winner, having copped the Best Reggae album three times as a solo artist, twice as a producer of younger brother Damian Marley’s Halfway Tree and Welcome to Jamrock albums, and also thrice during his time as a member of The Melody Makers.