By all reports, this past Monday's staging of the Guinness-branded Sting, was remarkable for having almost no remarkable feature or incident, a sharp contrast to the one-night festival's tumultuous history.

This has been attributed largely to the promoters' decision to nix the highly popular but problem-plagued clash element from the show.

"There wasn't any incident in terms of disruption this year, everything went well.we had a peaceful show," said Dennis Howard, director of Supreme Promotions. While the show was fairly well received by the audience, several patrons complained that the outcome of the "peace love and unity" event was unnecessarily lengthy.

The show, held at its customary venue, the Jamworld complex in Portmore, began a few minutes past 8:00 pm Monday and ended mid-morning on Tuesday.

The length was attributed to the large showcase of new talent, which included Busy Signal, Rising Star runner-up Noddy Virtue, Ragan and Shane-O, who all held their own despite performing before the usually fierce Sting crowd for the first time. Busy created a buzz in the audience with his set, which included the hit, Step Out while, Noddy's rendition of Jimmy Cliff's The Rebel In Me, which boosted his popularity on the local television programme, was well received.

Other still-young performers who did exceptional were Gyptian, dancehall trio Voisemail and Assassin.
The night also saw performances from several seasoned acts and veterans including, the formidable Ninja Man, the recently wedded Vybz Kartel and the doctor, Beenie Man.
Ninja Man, famous for annually pulling gimmicks and stunts at Sting, this year asked that the recently acquitted policeman, Reneto Adams, return to him the gun which he had surrendered to the lawman last year, a demand which sent the audience into a frenzy.

The Ladies of dancehall, Lady Saw, Queen Paula, Macka Diamond and Spice also performed well. However, all, with the exception of Macka Diamond, performed material that was riddled with raunchy lyrical content. Spice apparently however, who out did her female industry companions by entering the stage astride a horse, one-upping her Reggae Sumfest entry on the lap of a man with her legs locked around his waist.

Money goddess, Macka Diamond during her performance called Queen Paula on stage in an effort to resolve the differences they had on past shows. The two ladies shook hands and continued to perform.

Cultural acts Ritchie Spice and Luciano were also good. Spice performed his well-known tunes Earth A Run Red, Righteous Youths and several other songs from his Spice Up Your Life album. Cultural artiste Turbulence, famous for his duets Want Natty and We Got the Love with female 'singjay' Sasha, publicly affirmed on stage that the two were in fact in a relationship.

Guinness Sting, often seen by industry players as not only the 'greatest show on earth' but also one of the toughest crowds, was brought to church during the performance of gospel deejay Prodigal. The artiste's performance was well received, his ministry was strengthened by the presence of Hands Across Jamaica, which had several counsellors on hand praying for and ministering to the artistes backstage.

Selectors G-fuss of Stone Love, Glamour Wayne (Gemini) and Shang-Hi Solophonic kept the audience entertained during band changes, which were often times lengthy.

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