THE WAILERS
With: Dancehall Business featuring Tugstar, Josey Radix and One Stainless, Cheko Soto & the Pozitive Rebellion and Rebel Selector
Where: Victoria Curling Club, 1952 Quadra St., Victoria
When: Friday, May 31, 8 p.m. (doors at 7:30)
Tickets: $35.95-$45 from Destination Greater Victoria, Fascinating Rhythm (Nanaimo), Area 51 (Duncan), or online at
Most musicians would do anything to bottle a bit of the fairy dust sprinkled onto Taylor Swift, who had five albums — new and old — inside the Top 10 best-sellers list in 2023. But if you polled the same group, it would be Bob Marley whose career they would want to emulate.
Marley, the Jamaican reggae pioneer, had his career cut short by cancer at the age of 36. He died in 1981, but the greatest second act in music history took root three years later when his record label released Legend, a 14-song greatest hits compilation credited to Bob Marley and the Wailers. The album has been nothing short of a juggernaut in the decades since, and one that continues to defy convention — even for someone as an unconventional as Marley was during his lifetime.
Legend has lost very little of its record-setting momentum. In 2023, the collection posted staggering sales numbers, especially for a back-catalogue recording. Luminate, the data company that tabulates Billboard’s charts, noted that Legend, first released on May 8, 1984, came in at No. 66 on the Year-End Billboard 200 albums chart, which ranks album sales from across all genres.
That it placed higher on the sales chart than new recordings by country stars Bailey Zimmerman and Lainey Wilson tells you something about the quality and popularity of the music therein. But when you consider it also topped the year-end reggae album charts for the fourth year in a row, it’s clear the gap between Marley and The Wailers and the rest of the reggae competition is more than substantial. It’s Grand Canyon-like.
Legend has sold nearly 23 million copies to date, and sits at No. 21 on the list of best-selling albums in history, directly ahead of Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses and Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen. Its continuous run on the Billboard charts is the second-longest in history, behind only Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which tells you that the music keeps on giving, long after Marley’s death.
To celebrate four decades of Legend-ary success, a version of The Wailers, led by drummer Aston Barrett Jr., son of the late Wailers bassist and bandleader, has taken to the road.
“It’s a pleasure and a privilege … just to see the smile on everyone’s face,” Barrett Jr. said during a recent interview with the Euronews TV network. “We travel everywhere in the world, and the love that we get … you see the children, you see everyone from every race, every place. It’s amazing. It’s peace, love and unity.”
The world tour includes a stop Friday in Victoria, where the band performed in 2022 to nearly 2,000 people. The performance set a single-show attendance record at the Victoria Ska & Reggae Festival, whose artistic director, Dane Roberts, has booked the band a half-dozen times in the market, including their return Friday. It’s remarkable to see their continued appeal, Roberts said.
“Bob Marley’s legacy is still strong. Although reggae isn’t the most popular genre in North America, it still manages to resonate with all generations. All communities like it. Bob Marley is the most listened to artist in the world. People are still eating it up.”
Legend will be performed in full on Friday, which is good news for longtime fans who were hoping to hear Marley’s biggest hits. The proliferation of notable songs included on Legend, from Is This Love, Three Little Birds, and No Woman, No Cry to Stir It Up, Waiting in Vain, and Redemption Song, makes this or any other concert by The Wailers one worth attending, Roberts said.
“It’s not always the words. I think it has something to do with reggae music and the beat pattern of it. That certain soundwave is significant, and brings out a spirit in people that is universal, and comfortable. The music is joyful and reassuring.”
Barrett Jr. was asked by his father in 2016 to run The Wailers, following his retirement (he died in February at the age of 77). It has been an honour to be the latest link in the chain that is the legacy of what Marley and his father helped create, he said. “The music and the legacy is No. 1. I feel it’s very important to protect it, and that’s why we’re continuing to keep the legacy moving with The Wailers.”
