Duppy à Jamba

Detail: Duppy frontman J Duckworth is a dancing, dervish hybrid of Peter Tosh and Joe Strummer. He punches the air with boisterous barks and shouts, straining a voice already ragged and raspy. And it’s still early in the band’s first set of the evening. Dressed in black, his Punk Undertaker ensemble set off by gleaming white shoes, Duckworth taunts and cajoles a dozen dancers up front.

His chaotic, speed-freak energy-trance propels him and his guitar out on to the dance floor time and again throughout the evening, smashing the fourth wall between performer and audience. Duckworth’s impulsive animal instinct bonds the band and audience together. In this way he makes the dancers full contributors and energetic participants in the performance. The band brews a boiling Jamaican stew and all in attendance become active ingredients.

The crowd is moving like one: hands in the hair, feet flapping, elbows and knees bending and extending furiously to the band’s irrepressible Punk Ska energy. Now and then a head bobs above the fray like a fish leaping out of the ocean for a death-defying flip-flop flight, then it’s back into the bouncing mob. Guys take note: There’s a ton of young chicks in the crowd at Duppy shows.