Project Description
. . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . The Original Wailers, The Tivoli, Brisbane. Photo: Alec Smart, 20 Nov 2025 . . . . CLICK THE PIC TO VIEW THE NEWS
.THE ORIGINAL WAILERS
+ Fiesta Fiasco
@ The Tivoli, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, 20th November 2025
(Live Review)Review and Photos by Alec Smart (@alecsmart_fotos)
The Original Wailers, featuring musicians from the band that backed the late, legendary Bob Marley, performed at Tivoli Theatre in Brisbane, supported by 9-piece Brisbane band Fiesta Fiasco.
Fiesta Fiasco is a lively combination, great for getting a crowd dancing. Consisting of a three-piece brass section (trumpet, trombone, saxophone), guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and two female vocalists, they play a mixture of ska, reggae and soul with harmonic vocals.
Search ‘Fiesta Fiasco’ on Google, and one of the recommendations will be a 1967 Looney Tunes’ short animation featuring cartoon characters Speedy Gonzales, a sombrero-wearing, fast-paced Mexican mouse, and Daffy Duck, a self-centred, albeit likeable, wacky waterfowl that speaks with a pronounced lisp.
The cartoon centres on Daffy discovering Speedy has organised a party without inviting him, so he decides to ruin it with a rain cloud machine – only to find out later, after chaos ensues, that it’s a surprise birthday party intended for him.
Thankfully, the Brisbane band are in the habit of kick-starting parties, not sabotaging them!
They’ve released an album of 10-songs, divided into three separate entities, under the title The Corona Sessions volumes 1-3, plus two five-track EPs, Fiesta Fiasco and The Trouble.
The Original Wailers began their set with Stir It Up, which composer Bob Marley wrote, recorded and released in 1967. The song was Marley’s first breakthrough composition that brought the Jamaican artists international attention and radio airplay.
At The Tivoli the band continued playing some of Marley’s best-loved songs which the audience were encouraged to join in singing the choruses, including I Shot the Sheriff, Could You Be Loved, Is This Love and No Woman No Cry.
The latter, one of Marley’s biggest international hits, was co-credited to Marley’s friend Vincent Ford who ran a soup kitchen to feed the poor in Trenchtown. Although the song is believed to have been entirely written by Marley, it is generally accepted he co-credited Ford to divert a significant proportion of the song’s royalties to him.
Before being taken on by Island Records in 1972, Marley had signed a restrictive contract with producer Danny Sims at Cayman Music. In order to limit Sims cashing-in and being unfairly rewarded by his aspiring talent, Marley co-credited several of his songs to redistribute incoming royalties. After his death, Sims greedily sued Marley’s wife Rita, claiming co-ownership of the songs, but a 1987 Court hearing determined the Marley estate retained full rights to his music.
The Original Wailers also played Hypocrite, a lesser-known Marley composition from 1967 that Bunny Wailer released after he pursued a solo career.
Another largely unknown track they performed was Hammer, originally recorded in 1968 but was never included on Bob Marley & The Wailers’ albums from the 1970s. In fact it didn’t appear until 2004 when it was remastered for a compilation album. Several of the band’s set at The Tivoli showcased Al Anderson’s musical prowess with extended guitar solos.
Vocalist-guitarist Chet Samuel, who exudes confidence and has a pleasant singing voice, told the audience, “The message is in the music – it has always been the music, regardless of the artist…. The message is love!” He then urged the crowd to “turn to your neighbour, say ‘I love you!’ Hug your neighbour! Share your weed [marijuana] and buy them a drink!”
Quick History
There are at least three contemporary versions of The Wailers in existence and still touring.
The Original Wailers is centred on Al Anderson, the 73-year-old veteran musician who was recruited by Island Records to play guitar for Bob Marley & The Wailers on their Natty Dread album (1974). He remained with them as a band member before joining Peter Tosh, one of the co-founders of The Wailers, in his backing band, Word, Sound and Power.
The earliest incarnation of The Wailers was in 1963, when two childhood friends met self-taught musician Peter Tosh and began busking on the streets of their hometown, Trenchtown, in Kingston, Jamaica. They went on to write and record six albums together, first playing ska – an up-tempo dance music popular in Jamaica in the 195os – then rocksteady – a slowed down version of ska that evolved in the mid 1960s and incorporated American rhythm & blues and soul – and finally reggae – a significantly slower tempo that brought in African rhythms.
However, as Bob Marley’s remarkable songwriting talents developed, the trio of friends – Winston McIntosh (aka Peter Tosh), Neville Livingston (aka Bunny Wailer) and Robert Marley – that initially called themselves Teenagers, then The Wailing Rudeboys, followed by The Wailing Wailers, which was shortened to The Wailers, was eventually branded Bob Marley & The Wailers (1974) after the departure of Tosh and Wailer.
Al Anderson rejoined Bob Marley & The Wailers in 1978, playing on five international tours and the Babylon by Bus studio album, followed by Survival and Uprising, the latter Marley’s 12th and final album during his lifetime.
After the death of Bob Marley in 1981, aged just 36 (from advancing skin cancer), Marley’s backing band The Wailers continued performing and recording with different changes of line-up (and are still touring now). Al Anderson remained with them for some time and contributed guitar to their first studio album before pursuing other musical interests, including recording albums with Lauryn Hill, Ben Harper and actor Steven Seagal.
In 2008, Anderson and fellow Wailer, Junior Marvin, formed The Original Wailers, and they toured together until 2011, when Marvin left. In 2015 Marvin formed Junior Marvin’s Wailers, another spin-off band containing former musicians of Bob Marley’s backing group, then in 2019, Marvin formed The Legendary Wailers, who are also still touring.
Other current members of The Original Wailers are: bassist Rohan Reid, drummer Howard Smith, organist Noel Aiken and vocalist Chet Samuel, the latter a successful solo artist in his own right.
Samuel released his first solo album, Say My Name, in 2008. However, he was a young child living in Puerto Rico when Bob Marley was alive and therefore too young to have been in The Wailers when Marley was at his peak.
As Anderson told Maori news journal Teao News in January 2022, “Obviously, we are not the original Wailers. The original Wailers are Peter [Tosh], Bob [Marley] and Bunny [Wailer]. But in order for me to use the name, I had to incorporate their lyric content. So, this is a tribute to them, not to their music, them as individuals who wrote these songs. And we make our music through the spirit that they gave us.”
Bob Marley’s 13th and posthumously-released final studio album, Confrontation (1983), consisted primarily of re-recorded demos. This collection includes what became one of Marley’s most famous songs, Buffalo Soldier, which The Original Wailers performed as part of their encore at Brisbane’s Tivoli Theatre.
Buffalo Soldiers refers to the US Cavalry regiments that recruited dark-skinned Afro-Americans after slavery was abolished (1865). They were utilised to confront and subdue the Indigenous peoples of the United States during the American Indian Wars (1609-1890). The name was allegedly given the soldiers by the native resistance, who were ultimately vanquished and the survivors herded into reservations after the USA was colonised by Europeans.
Marley was initially unaware that the black regiments were primarily deployed to suppress the Indigenous Native Americans. Perhaps that was why he did not release the recording of his 1978 composition, which was discovered and popularised after his passing.
Set List
Stir It Up
I Shot the Sheriff
Could You Be Loved
Three Little Birds / Legalize It / Three Little Birds
Is This Love
Hammer
Hypocrite (Bunny Wailer cover)
No Woman, No Cry
JammingEncore
Waiting in Vain
Buffalo Soldier
Easy Skanking
One Love
Check out Alec Smart’s (@alecsmart_fotos) full gallery of this event HERE
Follow THE ORIGINAL WAILERS
Facebook – Instagram – X – Website
Follow FIESTA FIASCO
Website – Facebook – YouTube – Bandcamp.Press Release 15th May 2025 (below) HERE
Jamaica’s
THE ORIGINAL WAILERS
return to celebrate the
40th Anniversary of Legend
– The Best of Bob Marley
and the Wailers AlbumAMNPLIFY – DB
