By Kevin Fitzpatrick
One of the most rollicking highlights of the Star Wars Celebration was the only off-site activity on the schedule: Ahmed Best's "Jar Jar Jam" at a the Temple Events Center, on the site of a historic 100-year-old church in Denver. Being there was like hitting some kind of glorious Gungan music festival, and the Force-ful energy flowed through the night.
Imagine a high school dance from some weird galaxy where the attendees are all either (a) music-loving Star Wars fiends; or (b) clueless to music but such hardcore fans they had to catch this show. Both groups had a rocking good time and made it one Saturday night that will long be remembered.
Some fans didn't realize that Best is an accomplished musician, formerly of the group The Jazz Hole (with three albums on Blue Note records) as well as a cast member from the off-Broadway hit Stomp. For his 75-minute show, Best ripped through hip-hop, rock and dance music that moved the audience of 400 to get on the dance floor and try out their Jar Jar moves. It was a humorous scene to watch blaster-toting stormtroopers shake their bodies with other costumed fans dressed as Boba Fett and Princess Lela (in her Jabba's palace costume, of course). Darth Vader strode across the dance floor, the disco lights shining off his helmet as Best laid down phat beats.
To kick off the show, Ray Park jumped on stage to introduce Best and his band-mates. The crowd went absolutely bankers as the hip new Sith Lord strode onstage and whooped it up for the fans. To boisterous applause, the high-octane Best jumped to the front of the stage, clad in a tight, psychedelic Chewbacca T-shirt, and treated fans to a human beat-box version of John Williams' Star Wars Main Title music before whipping into the band's standard set.
Best drew a large crowd of his comrades from Episode I. In addition to Park, who at one point got on the microphone and laid an impromptu London rap on everyone, other stars who stopped by the Temple Events Center included Jake and Madison Lloyd, Pernilla August, Rick McCallum, and Lucasfilm public relations maven Lynne Hale. At the end of the show, Best pulled an excited McCallum onstage, leading the audience in chants of "Go Ricky, go Ricky, go!"
Anyone who thinks that Star Wars fans might need a Jedi mind trick tithe able to dance should think again: all it took was a creative DJ, who spun "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Yoda" and a trove of other Star Wars musical treasures before Best took the stage, to get the fans dancing like the Death Star had just been destroyed. It was an amazing sight.
