A friend of mine has an expression she uses to describe things that are really, really fantastic: "off de hook". I love the phrase but I've never quite known when to use it. Okay, now I do.

Wyclef Jean — headlining the opening night of Bermuda's 14th annual music festival — was off the hook, off the chain, off the meat rack. In fact, it would be fair to say he was off the planet.

I almost feel bad for the other artists taking part in this year's event — as accomplished and talented as they surely are — because it will be pretty much impossible for anyone to better the former Fugee.

If you were there — if you saw Wyclef climb the scaffolding, play the guitar with his teeth, bring Quincy Jones on stage to dance with lots of women, freestyle in about 15 languages, dart around the audience, do 100 push-ups, cover 'No Woman, No Cry' really, really well and start off a big Dockyard block party into the early hours of Friday — you know what I'm talking about. If you weren't, I pity you. You missed a loud, sweat-soaked, glorious treat.

The night started inauspiciously for me when I jumped off the ferry at Dockyard to be met by driving rain. I dashed to the Keep Yard — a very nice venue, by the way; definitely more intimate than the National Stadium — and arrived wet and bedraggled.

I bought a rain poncho at the merchandise stand as a cappella group Naturally 7 finished their set, grumbling to myself all the while.

Little did I realise how useful the plastic poncho would come in during Wyclef's rendition of 'Carnival', when he implored the crowd to wave whatever they had available in the air. Tied up in knots, it served me well as a makeshift scarf to shake wildly above my head.

A kind female festival worker towelled down my soaking wet seat in time for Erykah Badu's set — and all was well after that. The rain stayed away, Badu was just as quirky, funky, elegant and cool as I expected and the Keep Yard filled up with folk ready to party.

Erykah came on wearing a gorgeous mac (a cheeky nod to the weather, perhaps?), a top hat and PVC trousers and boots and the crowd started to really warm up. She was a tiny figure onstage — but her voice was huge, delivering a set of old hits and fresh material, as well as a great cover of Michael Jackson's 'Off the Wall'.

I was a little sad she didn't do 'Appletree', but 'On and On' was a definite crowd pleaser, as was 'Jah No Dead', and live favourite 'Tyrone'. By the time she was singing the latter, the mac had been removed and she was cutting some serious moves in a red T-shirt (did anyone read what the slogan on the front said?) to the delight of the audience.

She left the stage to tons of applause but it felt like the crowd was holding back a little. A lot of people were dancing but they weren't really losing it for Erykah.

They saved that for Wyclef, who came onto the stage in a silver leather jacket, bursting with energy. Actually, they didn't have any choice in the matter — this man could make a corpse jump up and down and wave its arms in the air.

I've seen hundreds of concerts over the years and the best are always the ones where the performers behave like they're having the time of their lives.

Wyclef did just that — and I really believe he was. The 37-year-old hip-hop artist's masterstroke was telling the audience early on: "If you're proud of who you are, you wouldn't be sitting in your seat." Cue thousands of people standing up and barely going near their seats again for the rest of his mammoth set.

He had the festival-goers eating out of his hand from the get-go and everything he did seemed to delight, from bringing his tiny daughter onstage, followed by his wife, to imploring the Island's youth to put aside their "town and country" differences, stop the violence and unite.

He looked so happy with the high standard of the local rappers who got on stage to perform — and welcomed a young woman to the stage who sang a velvety version of 'Summertime' after winning a competition to come to the Island.

Wyclef rapped, sang and mashed up a ton of brilliant old-skool tunes for hours (I didn't time it but I reckon he went past the four-hour mark), telling the crowd he wouldn't stop until they'd all left the venue.

I left to make the 1 a.m. ferry — the last of the night, I thought — but was kicking myself when it sat at King's Wharf for another hour while Wyclef's block party continued.

Still, I'd had too much of a good time to really worry and was too tired to do much more than close my eyes and smile all the way back to Hamilton.