Hollywood Bowl – June 21, 2026
I have seen Ziggy Marley before and I know what a great performer he is, so I jumped on the opportunity to see him again. This year’s lineup also included Zuri Marley and Burning Spear. It was my first show of the season at The Bowl and I was disappointed to learn that the Culver City bus is no more. Line 662 has moved to the Crenshaw Plaza at Crenshaw and MLK. I suspect it’s probably fine and will be finding out for sure shortly, but I’m less comfortable being in that area by myself at midnight than I was with any of the Culver City locations. Plus, it just keeps getting to be more of a drive to get to the bus. For Reggae night I opted to take the Santa Monica bus. I’ve taken it before and as soon as I got there I remembered why I don’t like it. It’s the opposite direction from the Bowl so even if it takes the same amount of time to get to Santa Monica that it takes to get to Culver City (or now, Baldwin Hills), it takes longer on the bus to get to and from the Bowl. Parking is at Santa Monica College and the parking lot is fine. Then you have to walk across a signaled crosswalk to get to the bus. The Bowl guy was just on the other side of the crosswalk, so presumably he would see you coming and wait for the signal to change before dispatching the bus. Once we finally arrived at the Bowl and the person boarded to tell us how to get back to our bus, I remembered the other reason I don’t like the Santa Monica bus: you have to go through the tunnel to get back to the bus. For years and years we had to go through the tunnel to get to the Culver City bus, but for the last few years we have not and I guess I’m spoiled now.
We got to the Bowl with plenty of time for me to use the restroom and find my way to my seat. I was at the very top in section W and the last escalator up was not working. When I’d looked before the concert, the entire top tier was sold out but there weren’t many people there. And there were never many people during the entire night. It was Reggae Night, so as expected everyone was getting high. The ushers completely ignored them, which is probably for the best since they were very much outnumbered.
Zuri Marley was doing a DJ set and she was not good. It was loud enough that I put my earplugs in (at the TOP of The Bowl!) and rather than matching beats to start a new song, she just abruptly stopped a song and then started the next. She also kept saying “my grandfather” and “my father” as she was dropping Bob’s and Ziggy’s names as if she had no relevance other than through her heritage.
Burning Spear was good, as one would expect from someone who’s been around as long as he has. I was able to take my ear plugs out for him. I’m sure I enjoyed his set more than the people sitting behind me who did not shut up entire time. I thought about moving since there were so many empty seats in my section, but I really had the perfect seat – I bought my usual row 6 seat on the overhang with no one in front of me.
Zuri Marley came out to do a second DJ set and was just as bad the second time around. Earplugs back in.
And then Ziggy Marley took the stage. He really is fantastic. I think I counted 11 people on stage with him. The back up singers are wonderful. They do a spirited choreographed dance while they sing and each had a few moments in the spotlight as well. The band was wonderful and Ziggy is just so charismatic. And then something magical happened: about 3 songs in, the people behind me said something about their Uber and got up and left. After that I was able to truly enjoy the performance. I was a little disappointed he didn’t play Dragonfly, but it was otherwise great.