Crowd favourites Bass Odyssey out of St Ann and Jam Rock from St Mary both lived up to the expectation of the crowd and conquered their respective foes, as the Guinness Sounds of Greatness competition ended its final series of clashes in Highgate, St Mary recently.

There was a roadblock in Highgate's town centre, as music lovers poured into the town to support their favourite sound system of the four - Bass Odyssey versus Coppershot, and Jam Rock up against Swatch International.

It was 10:15 p.m. when Elva took the microphone and opened up the doors for musical juggling and clashing at its best.

The sounds were judged in three categories: Juggling - where the sounds were given 20 minutes each; tune-for-tune - 15 selections each; and dub-for-dub - seven dubs each.

The first clash was extremely close. Coppershot started the juggling with Small Voice on the microphone. They started on a high with Sizzla's Can't Keep A Good Man Down and two other Sizzla selections, before following up with tracks from Etana, Kartel and Mavado, among others.

Coppershot started high, took it up a notch, but fell down in the end.

A test by the MC, Andsome Stephenson, after this first round, showed the crowd in favour of Bass Odyssey even before Lexxy touched the first Bass Odyssey tune, an Assassin dub. One more special, then Ding Dong's Holiday sent the crowd into a frenzy - and the clash was really on.

categories sampled

And with the hot and sexy Guinness girls dancing up a storm on stage, the night was complete.

The tune-for-tune category saw varied selections - gospel, ska, old school, rock and roll were some of the categories sampled. Coppershot fell away badly in this segment.

The dub-for-dub was exciting! The highlight, no doubt, was a Tarrus Riley special, Force Ripe, that Coppershot played. Coppershot comprehensively won this section.

In the end though, the judges' scorecards gave Bass Odyssey enough of a lead in the first two rounds to give them victory overall. The final tally: Bass Odyssey 428, Coppershot 421.

The second clash brought out what was undoubtedly the moment of the night.

Pityless surely didn't need any pity! The front man from Jam Rock, in countering Swatch's Maestro in the tune-for-tune section, called for his jacket, pulled a bible from his back pocket, seemingly read a verse or two and spoke in tongues before levelling a gospel selection from Glacia Robinson, Hold My Hand. It was pandemonium!

gospel track

The entire episode sent the crowd wild, and that more than any other moment would have turned the contest in Jam Rock's favour, even though Swatch managed to come back well with a gospel track, King David.

Whatever lead Swatch might have had at that point, surely Fade(d)Away according to the Junior Byles that Jam Rock later played.

But Swatch virtually obliterated itself by committing an unforgiveable error. Maestro hyped up the crowd for a Ninja Man to counter a don gorgon selection from Jam Rock. But the selector dropped a Bounty Killer instead.

The writing was on the wall from thereon in.

Jam Rock, too, lost points as the selector turned up without his headset and also played an illegal tune, according to Squeeze, one of the judges.

In the dub-for-dub, Jam Rock hardly played a new dub, relying heavily instead on dubs made years ago. Still, they managed to win that category also, according to the judges' scorecard.

It was all over at 1:40 a.m. - Jam Rock won by a wide margin, 511 to 423. It was a good comeback for the veteran sound, after Maestro stole the early going with some clever antics.

Both winners picked up cheques of $100,000 each. After the clash, they kept the crowd entertained for a while before signing off.