By Nigel Teles­ford

“Pieces” singer Na­dia Bat­son en­joyed an out­pour­ing of love and Car­ni­val en­er­gy from the mas­sive au­di­ence gath­ered at the Bish­op’s Food In­clu­sive Cool­er Fete, held on the school grounds on Sat­ur­day night. Bat­son re­ceived a warm and in­creas­ing­ly en­gaged re­sponse as she per­formed her many hit se­lec­tions on tracks, earn­ing—rather than de­mand­ing—a swelling cho­rus of voic­es and a sea of hands point­ed sky­ward in spir­it­ed but taste­ful rev­el­ry.

One thing was clear: Bish­op’s Fete is back with a bang. The Old Hi­lar­i­ans’ As­so­ci­a­tion and or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee de­serve com­men­da­tion for stay­ing the course through chal­leng­ing times and work­ing dili­gent­ly to re­store the event to the pre­mier sta­tus it en­joyed for many years.

A re­designed lay­out—with the stage fac­ing south and the main en­trance on Chancery Lane—cre­at­ed a wider dance floor and more ex­pan­sive par­ty space. Ad­di­tion­al food sta­tions, 360-de­gree cam­eras and a bot­tle bar were added south of the fenced-off school­yard pond, en­hanc­ing both flow and at­mos­phere.

Sekon Sta and Imani Ray kicked off the live ac­tion just af­ter sun­set, fol­lowed by GBM Nu­tron and Full Blown, whose slick, groovy pre­sen­ta­tions coaxed the most­ly fe­male crowd in­to shed­ding in­hi­bi­tions. Fan­cy shoes were kicked off in some cas­es, waists were wound freely, and pa­trons danced en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to the so­ca sound­track of the night and the per­form­ers’ live cat­a­logues.

Tak­ing the stage pre­cise­ly at 9 pm, Na­dia Bat­son looked re­splen­dent in a gold body­suit adorned with mul­ti­coloured se­quins. The charis­mat­ic song­writer and en­ter­tain­er ex­ud­ed con­fi­dence and class, tak­ing her time to ex­pert­ly build the crowd in­to a fren­zy. With each se­lec­tion, more hands went up and more screams and shrills filled the air, the en­er­gy ris­ing steadi­ly in­to a mas­sive wave of ap­pre­ci­a­tion as she de­liv­ered her lat­est hits and at­tempt­ed to close her set.

The crowd, how­ev­er, was hav­ing none of it. Re­fus­ing to let her leave, pa­trons fol­lowed along as Bat­son led se­mi-aer­o­bic demon­stra­tions to the left and right of the stage. Not to be left out, the cen­tre sec­tion clam­oured for its own mo­ment and had to be in­clud­ed be­fore she was fi­nal­ly al­lowed to bow gra­cious­ly, blow a good­night kiss and ex­it.

Mi­cal Te­ja fol­lowed with a sol­id set, fea­tur­ing a sur­prise ap­pear­ance by Patrice Roberts for their Road March con­tender, Cap­i­tal. Host Ken Sim­mons kept the vibes flow­ing and the au­di­ence in­formed through­out the night, while DJs Adam, Kaot­ic and Elon—along­side Ma­jor Pen­ny—kept spir­its high be­tween live per­for­mances.

From ded­i­cat­ed alum­ni such as Sharon Row­ley to cur­rent Sixth For­m­ers vol­un­teer­ing back­stage, the Bish­op Anstey High School faith­ful re­turned in force to cel­e­brate and sup­port their al­ma mater. The re­sult was a fan­tas­tic event that re­stored the leg­endary fete to its for­mer glo­ry as a must-at­tend on the Trinidad Car­ni­val cal­en­dar.

Aaron “Voice” St Louis closed the live ac­tion, send­ing the ma­ture au­di­ence home chip­ping and sway­ing—Car­ni­val fire of­fi­cial­ly ig­nit­ed and burn­ing steadi­ly with every heart­beat and breath.