Pe­ter Ray Blood

Last Mon­day, sev­er­al peo­ple who at­tend­ed the 2013 Na­tion­al Panora­ma per­for­mances by the 17 bands reg­is­tered to com­pete in to­day's large-band se­mi-fi­nal at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, com­ment­ed that bp Rene­gades is a hot favourite to take the top prize when the fi­nal is held on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day night.

Play­ing Denyse Plum­mer's Shock At­tack, arranged by Du­vonne Stew­art, folks likened the per­for­mance to that of a fi­nal night.Beam­ing with con­fi­dence Rene­gades mem­ber Col­in Greaves said his band was par­tic­i­pat­ing in this year's com­pe­ti­tion with a resur­gence of team spir­it and sense of pur­pose. He said that Rene­gades was de­ter­mined to pre­vent de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars from scor­ing a hat-trick, an en­vied achieve­ment owned sole­ly by Rene­gades. He added that Rene­gades' oth­er mo­ti­va­tion for win­ning is to equal the record of ten wins held by Wit­co Des­per­a­does.

Pan afi­ciona­dos are cu­ri­ous to hear what Ju­nior Sam­my Group Skif­fle has to of­fer in to­day's con­test, if on­ly for its unique tune of choice. Com­posed by Ray Hol­man and vo­calised by Gerelle Forbes, the song is ti­tled Su­pana, the Hin­di word for The Dream. The five steel­bands from the South Cen­tral zone in to­day's fray all share one dream, to be­come the first south­ern steel or­ches­tra to win a na­tion­al ti­tle since the 1975 win by Hat­ters Steel Or­ches­tra.

Skif­fle leader Ju­nia Re­grel­lo said this week, "I am sat­is­fied with the band's per­for­mance last night (Mon­day). It is crit­i­cal that peo­ple recog­nise and ac­knowl­edge that Ray Hol­man was an arranger in the first ever Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion in 1963, and is still there af­ter 50 years, do­ing good mu­sic. We think we have as a good a chance as any­one else to go all the way this year."

Fon­claire is play­ing Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore's arrange­ment of De­stra's Ad­dict­ed, a song com­posed by Mark Lo­quan. Band­leader Mil­ton "Wire" Austin, in high spir­its, said, "Our chances are very good. It has been a short sea­son but the re­sponse from the pub­lic has been fan­tas­tic. We have a com­pli­ment of 115 mu­si­cians and we are bark­ing, and com­ing to shake up the Sa­van­nah on Sun­day.

"To be suc­cess­ful, steel­bands have to be ac­tive for at least ten months of the year, and not just for Panora­ma. Many bands are run­ning from the large band cat­e­go­ry, but Fon­claire will al­ways be a large band, even if we are with­out a spon­sor, be­cause we love the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. This is where the air is rare in pan."When it comes to pan in Car­ni­val, PCS Sil­ver Stars is con­sid­ered a trail­blaz­er. Still hold­ing the record for be­ing the on­ly steel­band to win a Band of the Year ti­tle, this ac­com­plished New­town band has won the Na­tion­al Panora­ma ti­tle on two oc­ca­sions–2009, 2010. For Panora­ma 2K13, Sil­ver Stars is play­ing Shock At­tack, com­posed by Alvin Daniell and vo­calised by Denyse Plum­mer.

Hav­ing man­aged a very ac­tive year for his band in 2012, Sil­ver Stars leader/arranger Ed­win Pouchet said this week, "I feel great. Mon­day night's per­for­mance was fan­tas­tic. I think the play­ers pulled out all the stops that night and the pub­lic seemed to en­joy our per­for­mance. As the song states, on Sun­day a lot of peo­ple will be get­ting a shock at­tack in the Sa­van­nah when we per­form."

The lone To­ba­go steel­band in the large band se­mi-fi­nal is Roy­al Bank Re­demp­tion Sound­set­ters, the is­land's most for­mi­da­ble band. The band's se­lec­tion is More Than an Oil Drum, record­ed by just crowned Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Queen Joanne Fos­ter of south Trinidad. The piece is arranged by Win­ston Gor­don.

De­spite hav­ing a 7 pm start on Mon­day, the judges nev­er got to Wit­co Des­per­a­does' lo­ca­tion on Queen's Park East, un­til around 11 pm. The pride of Laven­tille, Des­per­a­does is ex­pect­ed to cap­ti­vate the Sa­van­nah to­day with Ken­neth Charles' Ham­mer Time, one of the most melod­ic Panora­ma se­lec­tions this year sung by Nicole Greaves. Arranger Rob­bie Greenidge has a chal­lenge on his hand to trim a cou­ple min­utes off the piece to bring it down to the re­quired eight-minute du­ra­tion of a Panora­ma piece.

Trinidad All Stars stal­wart Ed­die Hart said he was pleased with Mon­day night's per­for­mance. He said, "We felt good with our per­for­mance, and the arranger (Leon "Smooth" Ed­wards) seemed pleased. We are ready for Sun­day." All Stars has won the na­tion­al ti­tle on eight pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions.

An­oth­er band to sat­is­fy its fans on Mon­day night was Petrotrin Phase ll Pan Groove. Its Hamil­ton Street, Wood­brook yard was packed with fans when the band ex­e­cut­ed Len "Boogsie" Sharpe's arrange­ment of More Love, per­formed by Black Stal­in. A Phase II mem­ber said af­ter­wards, "We gave a laid back per­for­mance on Mon­day night. We saw peo­ple in the yard danc­ing and groov­ing to the mu­sic. This song is re­al­ly dif­fer­ent. The way how it is struc­tured, there's lots of room for Boogsie to do some re­al cre­ative things with it. On Sun­day we'll be more than ready to give the Sa­van­nah some­thing to go crazy over."

CAL In­vaders mu­sic co-or­di­na­tor De­siree May­ers said this week, "The pub­lic re­sponse was very good when we ex­e­cut­ed the tune on Mon­day night. Our play­ers ex­e­cut­ed the song very well and we feel very con­fi­dent about our chances on Sun­day." In­vaders is play­ing Ard­din Her­bert's arrange­ment of Dat is Lie, a song by Rem­bunc­tion. Four-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus is com­ing to the Sa­van­nah to­day with a re­worked ver­sion of Mae­stro's Gold, first per­formed in 1977. Arranger Pel­ham God­dard and band leader Ainsworth Mo­hammed are en­thused with the Tune of Choice, with Mo­hammed say­ing, "The pri­ma­ry rea­son for se­lect­ing this song is to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion; the na­tion's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary; and the golds by Hase­ly Craw­ford, Janelle Pen­ny Com­mis­siong-Chow, Wendy Fitzwilliam, Giselle Laronde-West, Anya Ay­oung Chee, Bri­an Lara, Dwight Yorke and Keshorn Wal­cott. What Machel (Mon­tano) had clev­er­ly done in plan­ning this trib­ute song was use on­ly mon­archs in the record­ing.

"We had a very good per­for­mance and it was well ex­e­cut­ed. For Sun­day, we are hop­ing, as has been the cus­tom in past years, to be up among the top qual­i­fiers."

"Our per­for­mance on Mon­day night was very good," says So­lo Har­monites di­rec­tor Owen Ser­rette. "Every­thing went as planned in that we played just un­der five min­utes of the song Black Stal­in's More Love, the same se­lec­tion Phase II Pan Groove is play­ing. Our arranger, Seion Gomez, is a Boogsie Sharpe fa­nat­ic so, like last year, we are again per­form­ing the same song Boogsie has com­posed for Phase II. This time around, we in­tend plac­ing even high­er than we did last year, so we are de­ter­mined to not place low­er than fifth."

As of last Mon­day, the band was of­fi­cial­ly named White Oak Star­lift and to­day it is among the large con­ven­tion­al bands se­mi-fi­nal­ists, per­form­ing Clive Tele­maque's Bounce & Dri­ve, arranged by Kei­th Sal­cedo. Star­lift mem­ber Rolph Clarke said, "We were pleased with our Mon­day night per­for­mance. I be­lieve the band would make every­one pleased with its Sun­day per­for­mance as well."Oth­er bands con­test­ing to­day's large con­ven­tion­al band se­mi-fi­nal are Hum­ming Bird Pan Groove, bird­song, T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, Petrotrin Siparia Del­tones and NGC La Brea Nightin­gales.