Glide’s Andrew Bruss is providing day to day coverage of Jam Cruise 13 as it makes its way around sea over the course of five days. Here are the highlights and photos from day 3 aboard the ship.
Dry Land: After a day and two nights on the seas, Day Three started out docked at port in Roatan, Honduras. Miles off the mainland, the island became the temporary home of JamCruise as thousands of the most blissed-out music lovers made the most out of their day in paradise. Excursions were in high demand and hundreds of JamCruisers either snorkeled, took an archeology hike, went kayaking, or went on a jungle zip line ride that ended with time to play with the monkeys. Some Cruisers, along with artists, worked alongside the folks at Positive Legacy to build a playground for local kids.
While this port, like most of the ports this trip visits, might as well have been as Westernized as Kenmore Square, folks took taxis into town and cruisers on excursions were driven past and through residential areas on their way to their adventure, seeing for themselves the conditions that the locals of Roatan are used to.
The weather was perfect, the island had plenty of history rich with pirate battles, and JamCruise got to leave behind a playground. Not a bad way to pregame Day 3’s musical agenda…
The Extraordinaire: Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires put on such a powerful, soulful performance on the pool deck as were leaving Roatan that it gave you the feeling that a child was literally being conceived somewhere on the ship at that very moment.
A slowed down R&B cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” had the audience eating out of Bradley’s hand before the first third of the set was even complete. The man practically excretes charisma and the fact that Charles Bradley isn’t a household name is a stain on the history of pop music that is hard to fathom when watching and hearing him live and in the flesh.
It’s A Family Affair: The heart and soul of the musical philosophy behind JamCruise is collaboration. Two of their three top acts (Pretty Lights, The Word) were either collaborative in nature or were performing a special collaborative set for JamCruise. That spirit blasted out of the stratosphere on every front, setting the stakes even higher for the last two days and nights of the trip.
The Word held down late night duties on the Pool Deck until 3am. The act, Robert Randolph and John Medeski alongside the North Mississippi All-Stars, welcomed G. Love to the stage and shared in the groove and halfway through The Word’s set, The Motet kicked off their last scheduled performance of JamCruise 13 in the ships two-story theater based out of the bow.
Cruisers showing up late, having seen the end of The Word, walked into the most reality-tearing collaboration yet as The Motet welcomed Ivan Neville and Nigel Hall to join them in leading a powerhouse jam that hosted members of Railroad Earth, The String Cheese Incident, and Bootsy Collins’ band.
By 4am, The Motet had hung it up for the night, but a few decks down, at the very back of the ship, Robert Walter was just warming up in the Jam Room. By that point in the night Walter had already welcomed a dozen or so musicians on stage while Nathan Moore and a modern ragtag of fellow troubadours played well into the morning on the outer deck on the same floor.
It was a wet dream for Setlist Nerds but you didn’t have to know a single thing about who was on stage to enjoy it as much as the tour vet to your right.
Day 4 has its work cut out for it…
