Kevon Felmine

The youth­ful vigour of Old Tech Steel Or­ches­tra and de­fend­ing South Panora­ma Small Band cham­pi­on Tor­na­does blew away the com­pe­ti­tion on Thurs­day night at the Na­tion­al Small Band pre­lim­i­nar­ies. How­ev­er, it was a tight bat­tle for su­prema­cy among the four medi­um bands com­pet­ing for a place to reach the semi­fi­nal round on Feb­ru­ary 5 at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. Among those pa­tro­n­is­ing the event was San Fer­nan­do may­or Mar­lene Coudray, Point Fortin may­or Clyde Paul and for­mer San Fer­nan­do West MP Ju­nia Re­grel­lo. Com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, the event saw a small crowd, in a show which would usu­al­ly see hun­dreds of pan lovers flock­ing in­to the venue with their cool­ers and chairs.

De­spite the small turnout, the 16 bands played out their hearts and soul be­fore a pan­el of judges who could not help but tap their feet to the ren­di­tions. Play­ing in first po­si­tion, Old Tech Steel Or­ches­tra led by Sean Ram­sey, set the bar with a high tem­po and sweet per­for­mance of De­stra Gar­cia's Vibes. It was a spir­it­ed ex­e­cu­tion by the teenagers who played beau­ti­ful­ly, the com­po­si­tion writ­ten by Mark Lo­quan and Pro­fes­sor Ken Philmore. Fol­low­ing in po­si­tion two, the Point Fortin band - Tor­na­does - showed once again that it was force to be reck­oned with in south Trinidad. Jump­ing and chant­i­ng, the play­ers de­liv­ered a foot-mov­ing per­for­mance of De­sign­er's Prophet of Pan. Their arrange­ment, by Shevon "Shev" Ed­ward, was filled with vari­a­tion and melody which showed that the band was once again ready to take its place as one of South's best.

Out of cen­tral Trinidad, Long­denville Clay­tones was full of har­mo­ny and melody in play­ing Trevor B's Trin­ba­go Yuh Sweet. Arranged by Richard Git­tens, the band led by Do­rant Berkley left a last­ing ef­fect on the au­di­ence. There were oth­er groovy per­for­mances by San City Steel Or­ches­tra, South­ern Marines and Gold­en Hands. An­til­lean All Stars al­so ren­dered sweet pan mu­sic. Pleas­antville Kalamo Kings was a no-show on stage as their per­for­mance was can­celled. In the medi­um sec­tion, Pan El­der Steel Or­ches­tra play­ing De Fos­to's Boogsie re­al­ly paid trib­ute to pan leg­end Len Boogsie Sharpe. With a per­for­mance wor­thy of awards, the Hol­lis­ter Smith led band left pa­trons danc­ing in the park. How­ev­er, it would be a tough task for judges as the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry fea­tur­ing Petrotrin Hat­ters, Trinidad Val­ley Harps and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders all per­formed ad­mirably.