Paolo Nutini is out in Beijing with Puma and he’s been hanging out with 200m World Champion and 100m World Record holder Usain Bolt and the Jamaican Olympic team on the eve of Jamaica’s 46th Independence Day and a few days ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
There was a special Puma gig where Paolo and the boys played a 45 minute set of new stuff and a selection of songs from ‘These Streets’. As you’d expect, Paolo went down a storm and was the perfect morale boost to the athletes ahead of the Games.
After the gig, there was short catwalk show by the Jamaican athletes and an address by the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, who then brought Paolo back on stage to play a 3 song encore for the Jamaican team; 'King Of Kings' by Jimmy Cliff, 'Jamaica Farewell' by Harry Belafonte and 'One Love' by Bob Marley.
When Paolo started “One Love” he was joined on stage by Jamaican athletes Maurice Smith, Shevon Stobbart and Chelsea Hammond and Usain Bolt started singing backing vocals and playing drums - apparently he wants to be a drummer and afterwards was asking Paolo to teach him.
Paolo said afterwards “It was a great night of unity in a country where there’s so much unrest! And it’s not every day you get to sing and play drums with the fastest man in the World! G’wan Jamaica!”
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