Kaya Tour

The Kaya Tour was a concert tour organised to support the album Kaya by Bob Marley & The Wailers.

The tour was initially set to begin in early May in Miami, Florida, but the first six shows had to be postponed due to lead guitarist Junior Marvin's cocaine problems. Therefore the tour began in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 18, 1978, and ended in Miami, Florida, on August 5, 1978. The tour was divided into three legs, two U.S. legs and one European leg between. Before the tour Marley performed at the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978.

Numerous concerts including the performances in Paris' Pavillon Baltard were recorded in order to release a second live album, Babylon by Bus which is a compilation of songs performed in Paris as well as from earlier shows from the tours in 1975 and 1976.

On July 21, Peter Tosh, who was on tour with the Rolling Stones and performing in Anaheim, stopped by the Starlight Bowl in Burbank (where Bob was playing) and performed "Get Up, Stand Up" with Marley. Mick Jagger is said to have watched the entire show from off stage.

On July 23, the birthday of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, reincarnated God of the Rastafari movement, Marley performed in Santa Barbara and did a very rare live performance of his song Sun Is Shining.

While on the tour Marley performed for the first time in Spain and Norway, and also premiered at the Madison Square Garden.

Steel Pulse were the opening act on several of Marley's European dates on the tour.

Setlist

After the first quarter of the tour the setlists became more standardised and mostly looked like the following:

• "Positive Vibration"
• "them Belly Full (but We Hungry)"
• "Concrete Jungle"
• "Rebel Music (3 O'Clock Roadblock)"
• "the Heathen"
• "War" / "No More Trouble" (medley)
• "Running Away" / "Crazy Baldhead" (medley)
• "Crisis"
• "I Shot The Sheriff"
• "No Woman, No Cry"
• "is this Love"
• "Jamming"
• "Lively Up Yourself"
• "Easy Skanking"
• "Get Up, Stand Up"
• "Exodus"

At the beginning of the tour a Nyabinghi chant called "So Long Rastafari" (sometimes as a medley with "Time Will Tell") had been performed at the start of the show, followed by "Concrete Jungle", "Burnin' and Lootin'" and "them Belly Full (but We Hungry)". Since the Nyabinghi chant was very meditative and slow until it segued into the lively reggae beat of "Concrete Jungle", it was decided to replace the chant by the classic and instantly lively "Positive Vibration" to better catch the audience from the beginning. The same procedure was done at the beginning of the Rastaman Vibration Tour in 1976 when a medley of Nyabinghi chants, like "Lion of Judah" and "Rastaman Chant," opened the sets, but was later replaced.

It is reported that all songs from the Kaya album had been performed at least once. There are reports of various people (concert attenders, band members) that Marley did unusual long concerts in Ann Arbor MI, Lenox MA, and Oslo (Norway), each with a setlist full of rarely performed songs. There were also performances of an earlier song, "Punky Reggae Party", which is not featured on any of Marley's Island albums released at that time, but was released as a single in 1977. When performed it was part of a medley along with "Get Up, Stand Up".

From show to show sometimes an additional song was edged in somewhere in the setlist, like "Slave Driver", "Burnin' and Lootin'", "Punky Reggae Party", "Kaya", "Sun Is Shining", "Time Will Tell", "One Love", "Natural Mystic", "Waiting in Vain", "So Much Things To Say", "Talkin' Blues", "Who the Cap Fit", "Rat Race" and "Roots, Rock, Reggae". Live performances of each of these songs happened very rarely during the tour.

Tour dates