Wayne McGregor (left) and Seretse Small engage in some guitar banter. - Photos by Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Friday night's '90s Rock Live at Redbones the Blues Café, was not quite a retro live music session. Not only because good music is timeless (and many of the songs chosen are great), but also because the band delivered them with energy, enthusiasm, nuance, individual flair and obvious love for the material.

And they played like there was no tomorrow.

If the stage at the Braemar Avenue, New Kingston, nightspot was a football pitch, the band at the Griot Music - organised event would have been an all-star, mix and match, line-up.

Phoebe Henry and Fabian Pinkney of the Jamaica School of Music and the Gas Money band were the forwards (Pinkney doing the bulk of the singing). Black Zebra's Wayne McGregor was the humorous maverick on the right wing with his guitar and sometimes lead vocals, Kamla Hamilton on the other wing on keyboards.

Thrilling with voices

Seretse Small was the roving midfield general with his guitar, bass player Jerry and the drummer stopper and sweeper, respectively.

Neither Pinkney nor Henry are flashy singers, relying entirely on their voices without the trappings of dressing and props of stage antics. And it worked very well, Pinkney's voice plaintive on Bryan Adams' Everything I Do, insistent on REM's Losing My Religion and caressing on Seals' Kiss From a Rose.

Fabian Pinkney performs at '90s Rock Live at Redbones the Blues Café last Friday night.

Roving right winger and mobile midfield general bounced extended, sometimes seemingly extemporaneous guitar phrases between them all night, often at close range, the jutting necks of their guitars juxtaposed at various angles as frenetic fingers flew on the fretboards.

"We are going to give Fabian a break. He has been working hard. Have you been having a good time?" Henry asked. When the very enthusiastic, average sized audience said yes, Henry said "I'll try not to spoil that."

She did not, her voice strong but not attempting to beat down the music and the audience cheering when she hit the line "it's like hey hey".

"We're going to keep in the same vein for the next song," Henry said, before delivering Alanis Morisette's You Oughta Know, smiling and saying "gracias" above the cheer at the end.

McGregor took over lead vocals for Oasis' Wonderwall and there were three voices up front for a ripping, rocking version of Tub Thumping. When Pinkney asked if there were any REM fans in the house there were many, Small adjusting the amplifier in real time for spectacular guitar effects to close off the first segment.

A couple raindrops did not lead to a deluge like the one that put off the first staging of '90s Rock Live. Blink 182's All the Small Things, with McGregor on lead vocals, got the second segment off to a flying start, a repeated, staccato crescendo anchoring the close. U2's One celebrated the unity and diversity, Henry tugged at the heartstrings with Nothing Compares To You and put spirit into One of Us, McGregor adjusting his black hat (which he removed entirely at one point in the concert) and getting back into the music seamlessly.

Achingly beautiful

Clapton's Tears in Heaven, McGregor singing and Small playing with a sparing drum at points (mainly a light touch on the hi-hat), was achingly beautiful. There were guitar combustions, vocal pyrotechnics (Pinkney on Radiohead's Creep), a Caucasian chap in the house showed some real rock leaps on Lenny Krazitz' Fly Away and, at the end of the concert, McGregor put his guitar on the ground and played his soul with the sole of his shoe.

The drummer dramatically tossed a cymbal onto the stage and McGregor used that to play too, twirling his guitar and returning it to the stand in perfect time to the music and the concert was over. Or should have been. An encore was demanded and Everything I Do granted, Hoochie Coochie Man with McGregor up front ending a great night.

As Small said in the early going, "Musicians need to come together and hold on to the unity. It is not a competition, it is a vibe, a love for the music."