Reggae band UB40 played in Kampala on Saturday to a crowd of between 30,000 and 40,000, drawing in revenue of as much as Ush 300 million for the Uganda Revenue Authority (Uganda’s IRS), and surely coming away with a pretty penny was the band itself.

I don’t really like UB40, nor do most of the people I know, but the scale of this concert alone seemed to make it worth attending. (When you consider that Kampala has about 1.2 – 1.8 million people, depending on how you count, there were a whole lot of Kampalans at the concert.)

When I approached the stadium, the line was around the block. Flashed my nifty press pass and managed to elbow my way in, and then elbow through the crowd to the front so I could get some good pictures for the AP, who had asked me to cover the show for them.

Security at the front was pretty intense. The police had taser guns they made regular use of.

They herded us media from one corral to another, pretty much as they pleased, and even took away some journalists’ cameras. After that, and when the security said we couldn’t take any more photos, I decided to make my exit. I wasn’t going to stay around to hear hits that didn’t do it for me, risk my camera and my security, or waste time when I still had to file my photos to Nairobi.

In conclusion: better than the German President, not as good as interesting to photograph as a protest, but at least I made some money and didn’t have to pay for a ticket.