Live Review: Jimmy Cliff

Throughout his career, Jimmy Cliff has played the role of two distinct characters: the actor and the activist. With a discography spanning 44 years and multiple soundtrack and movie appearances, the Jamaican musician knows how to enlighten and to entertain; as evident tonight, sometimes simultaneously. “We the people have got to let them know, we don't want another Vietnam in Afghanistan,” he says, prefacing an updated version of his 1970 single Vietnam, now known as Afghanistan. The song Bob Dylan once described as the greatest protest song of all time has the audience's undivided attention, as Cliff fires political condemnation at the world's leaders. The line between his characters becomes blurred when he follows it up with Hakuna Matata and then Wonderful World, Beautiful People, but it's the juxtaposition of good versus evil and fact versus fiction that makes Cliff and his musical guises so captivating to watch.

“This is from the movie I think that you here in Australia were introduced to reggae from,” he says, before re-enacting a scene from the 1972 feature film The Harder They Come, for which he played the leading role and wrote the majority of the soundtrack. In manic fashion, he doesn't break from his character of Ivanhoe Martin, as the song starts to kick in. As the rhythm section slowly fades out and without drawing for breath he continues, “Here is a song from another movie, Cool Runnings,” picking up a guitar and beginning I Can See Clearly Now.

Cliff returns to his roots by performing his 1962 single King Of Kings segued into Miss Jamaica. A first-wave ska double header, it gets the dancefloor moving and confirms Cliff's title as a reggae and indeed ska pioneer. Though his marbles may have gone, his voice certainly hasn't with Many Rivers To Cross showing off his gospel prowess, while a version of Rivers Of Babylon, backed only by African drums, shows its flexibility.

Closing with One More from his 2012 album Rebirth, it fast becomes the catch cry for the next half hour, as Cliff submits to encore after encore, in a set lasting 100 minutes. Finally finishing with Blessed Love, at 64 Cliff isn't just a living legend, he is fit, firing and as relevant as ever.