This is the land of oil and mu­sic and Fri­day night Car­ni­val Melee learned this is al­so the land where you can make a quick $500 for "bussing a man head" with a stick.On Fri­day night we went to Ari­ma for the Na­tion­al Stick Fight­ing semi­fi­nals held at the Ari­ma Velo­drome.

Stick Fight­ing is a na­tion­al tra­di­tion, brought to T&T by African slaves. In 2011, the then min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism said he in­tend­ed to turn the art­form, which ba­si­cal­ly in­volves at­tack­ing an op­po­nent with a stick, in­to a re­al sport.

If you're the blood­thirsty type, then stick fight­ing is an event you'd like, be­cause on Fri­day we saw more blood than we'd have liked. We were re­lieved to see an am­bu­lance on stand­by for the squea­mish spec­ta­tors threat­en­ing to faint and the ac­tu­al stick fight­ers, who took blows to the head like a friend­ly pat on the back.

On a more lov­ing note, there were thou­sands of women be­ing ca­ressed by the soul­ful tones of Amer­i­can R&B singer Bri­an McK­night who was the guest per­former at Ladies Night Out, the show host­ed by Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.Car­ni­val Melee did won­der how an R&B per­former would go down at a so­ca con­cert but the suave singer more than held his own. McK­night didn't have much singing to do be­cause the starstruck ladies sang his tunes from be­gin­ning to end and he ac­tu­al­ly left them want­i­ng more at the end of his half-hour set.

The or­gan­is­ers of Ladies Night Out have to be con­grat­u­lat­ed for run­ning such a tight show. With a line up that in­clud­ed De­stra, Kes, McK­night, Roy Cape, Iw­er, Singing San­dra, Ca­lyp­so Rose, Iw­er George and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, it could have been a te­dious­ly long night but all the acts kept their per­for­mances short and there were no un­due de­lays. Sat­ur­day night saw us at the 13th an­nu­al Cen­tral Bank All In­clu­sive Fete on In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain.

This fete was a par­adise for al­co­hol lovers. We found the bar­tenders were go­ing heavy on the al­co­hol and light on the chas­er. A des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver was a ne­ces­si­ty and so was an emp­ty stom­ach as we found our­selves tra­vers­ing though Geera al­ley (we opt­ed not to have the geera horse), Chi­nese Boule­vard and Chow and Gy­ro lane. The food was tasty and the long lines re­flect­ed that.

The packed venue re­spond­ed well to a per­for­mance from Kes the Band but were a bit luke­warm with chut­ney so­ca band Kar­ma, re­spond­ing in full jump­ing and wav­ing force when vo­cal­ist Ravi B per­formed his 2013 of­fer­ing Pre­scrip­tion and with even greater fer­vor when he did a cov­er of Su­per Blue's Fan­tas­tic Fri­day.

We left Cen­tral Bank around mid­night, miss­ing per­for­mances by Roy Cape and Blaxx and Su­per Blue, in or­der to head to the east for the first Pris­ons fete, So­ca For Life, in Arou­ca. The Army's fete is usu­al­ly pro­mot­ed as "the safest fete for Car­ni­val" but Pris­ons comes pret­ty darned close.

On ar­rival, some very cour­te­ous prison of­fi­cers di­rect­ed us to the back of the venue to park, we were then es­cort­ed to the en­trance just as Kar­ma be­gan their per­for­mance. The band was bet­ter re­ceived in Arou­ca than they were at Cen­tral Bank and Ravi B said it was one of their best per­for­mances for the sea­son.

Na­dia Bat­son's so­ca-filled set was short and sweet al­though we thought her out­fit of leg­gings and a T-shirt was a bit un­der­whelm­ing for an artiste.The star of So­ca For Life was so­ca di­va De­stra Gar­cia, who per­formed her many hits and brought ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties Shal Mar­shall and Su­per Jig­ga TC and 5Star Ak­il on stage with her. Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon treat­ed pa­trons to a win­ing class dur­ing De­stra's set as well.

We found it un­for­tu­nate that though Bun­ji Gar­lin and the Asy­lum band were slat­ed to per­form, the show end­ed be­fore they could make an ap­pear­ance.

Al­though we didn't make it to the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch fi­nal on Sat­ur­day night, we were keep­ing an eye on the so­cial me­dia com­men­tary and are glad that one of our favourite en­ter­tain­ers, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine of Dil-E-Nadan won the crown. From all re­ports, his per­for­mance was tru­ly show­stop­ping!

You have prob­a­bly re­alised that Car­ni­val Melee doesn't have the lux­u­ry of sleep so it won't be a sur­prise that hours af­ter mak­ing it back to Port-of-Spain, we found our­selves in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for the Panora­ma semi­fi­nals for Large and Medi­um bands.

The Sa­van­nah Par­ty has re­al­ly grown in re­cent years, but some would say not in a good way.

The North Stand was packed and the lime was as rau­cous as ever. We think it's still the best place to hear the pan but the re­al ac­tion was on the Greens.

The Greens is an at­tempt by Pan Trin­ba­go to cater for the peo­ple who want to be in the Sa­van­nah on Panora­ma day pure­ly to lime and pose.Some feel the idea of the Greens is an af­front to the steel­band, oth­ers­be­lieve the noise from the area is dis­tract­ing to the bands and judges but de­spite all the protests, it seems set to stay–if on­ly be­cause it brings in so much ex­tra rev­enue for pan's gov­ern­ing body.

Yu­ma, Scorch Mag­a­zine, Cae­sar's Army, 96.1 WEFM, bmo­bile and Is­land Peo­ple Mas were some of the or­gan­i­sa­tions that erect­ed large stages for per­for­mances by the so­ca stars who passed through the venue.

The sur­re­al mo­ment of the day was Kees Di­ef­fan­thaller on the Yu­ma stage hug­ging Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards and his wife who were on­ly too keen to oblige the in­struc­tions to wine back. On­ly in Trinidad, some might say.

On the so­ca front, Machel Mon­tano re­leased the mu­sic video for his Road March con­tender Float. The video which fea­tures some ex­u­ber­ant kids danc­ing up a storm is a joy to watch but we still aren't fans of the song.

Melee is not hap­py that so many good tunes are not get­ting air­play. Find Olatun­ji Year­wood's Bam Bam, Lyrikal and Wild­fire's Sweet Get­away and Michelle Xavier's Hold Some­body, you won't be dis­ap­point­ed.

We un­der­stand that it's a short sea­son and sta­tions have com­mer­cial com­mit­ments but it would be good if some of these gems didn't get left be­hind.

We've al­so no­ticed that the ur­ban ra­dio sta­tions have been play­ing Mon­tano's Float and Su­per Blue's Fan­tas­tic Fri­day back to back since the So­ca Monarch semi­fi­nals. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it feels like we're be­ing brain­washed. Please broad­en your playlists and in­clude some of the oth­er artistes in the com­pe­ti­tion.

So folks, it's crunch time! Or should we say, Bac­cha­nal time! With on­ly 11 days un­til Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, the last-minute crew has been rush­ing to mas camps to buy cos­tumes and J'ou­vert pack­ages. We're al­so hear­ing a lot of folks com­plain­ing about an aw­ful flu that's mak­ing the rounds.

Melee will be hav­ing some much-need­ed rest and re­cu­per­a­tion this week, in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the week­end that leads in­to the twi­light zone of no sleep un­til Ash Wednes­day, we want to be ready for Machel Mon­day and Iw­er Wednes­day!