It has been more than a decade that peren­ni­al Panora­ma cham­pi­ons BP Rene­gades have climbed the dizzy­ing heights of steel­band's mar­quee com­pe­ti­tion. Of­fi­cials, play­ers, mem­bers, sup­port­ers and spon­sors all be­lieve 2012 is the year that the band will re­claim past glo­ries. That col­lec­tive faith in the band's im­me­di­ate for­tunes rests firm­ly on the cre­ative tal­ents of young but ex­pe­ri­enced arranger Du­vone Stew­art and the un­doubt­ed pedi­gree of its well-drilled panists. Judg­ing by its mes­meris­ing per­for­mance of De­stra Gar­cia's Vibes dur­ing pre­lim­i­nary judg­ing at its pa­n­yard in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day night, those heady ex­pec­ta­tions seem well-found­ed. Hun­dreds of pan fa­nat­ics, avid sup­port­ers and ob­jec­tive lis­ten­ers, no doubt, erupt­ed in sus­tained ap­plause when Stew­art brought his ba­ton down to bring an end to the ten-minute mu­si­cal feast served be­fore Pan Trin­ba­go's judges. For good mea­sure, the play­ers, seiz­ing the mo­ment, dished out a gen­er­ous por­tion of its fare for dessert. Michael Mar­cano, pres­i­dent of BP Rene­gades (bpTT), was a man well pleased on Mon­day night. "This is it! I think this is it!" ex­claimed Mar­cano. Hav­ing made a habit of lift­ing the cher­ished Panora­ma cham­pi­onship tro­phy in the 80's and 90's, Mar­cano can be for­giv­en for be­liev­ing that the sur­pris­ing­ly-long drought is com­ing to an end.

Mar­cano's con­fi­dence is ful­ly shared by the oth­er pres­i­dent in the pan part­ner­ship, Nor­man Christie, re­gion­al pres­i­dent, bpTT, long­stand­ing spon­sors of the pop­u­lar steel­band. "The per­for­mance tonight was very mu­si­cal. It was vin­tage BP Rene­gades. Judg­ing by the re­sponse of the jam-packed au­di­ence alone, Rene­gades will be a force to be reck­oned with in this year's com­pe­ti­tion," said Christie, one of the band's most avid sup­port­ers. Christie said the re­la­tion­ship be­tween bpTT and BP Rene­gades had de­liv­ered price­less ben­e­fits to both part­ners. "We have en­joyed a great re­la­tion­ship with this leg­endary steel­band over the years. BP Rene­gades has tak­en our in­dige­nous mu­sic to dif­fer­ent parts of the world. The great­est ben­e­fit, how­ev­er, is the sheer joy the band has brought to pan and mu­sic lovers wher­ev­er it per­forms," the bpTT head point­ed out. Mon­day night be­longed, in large mea­sure, of course, to the laid-back Du­vone Stew­art, en­trust­ed by the band's man­age­ment with the mon­u­men­tal task of guid­ing the nine-time cham­pi­ons back to Panora­ma cham­pi­onship glo­ry, the ul­ti­mate achieve­ment in the high-oc­tane pan fir­ma­ment. Icon­ic arranger Jit Sama­roo had craft­ed all nine BP Rene­gades win­ning Panora­ma tunes, in­clud­ing the on­ly hat-trick of ti­tles (1995-96-97) since the com­pe­ti­tion be­gan in the 60's. Stew­art, 35, a mem­ber of the band since 1991, played for many years un­der the mae­stro him­self.

Ac­cord­ing to Stew­art, a pri­ma­ry fo­cus in his arrange­ment was to "re­cap­ture the true en­er­gy, the true essence and the unique char­ac­ter­is­tics" BP Rene­gades dis­played in the past. "Rene­gades is all about hap­py, joy­ful mu­sic. I felt I had to recre­ate that spe­cial Rene­gades per­son­al­i­ty that sets the band apart from all oth­ers," ex­plained Stew­art, who as­sumed ar­rang­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for the "stage side" in 2006. As for the choice of tune, Stew­art said Vibes had "all the true el­e­ments and vibes" to spot­light the mood and mea­sure of BP Rene­gades. "The first day I heard the tune I knew it had the po­ten­tial to de­liv­er a re­al­ly spe­cial Panora­ma ex­pe­ri­ence," he added. Band cap­tain Can­dice An­drews ex­ud­ed con­fi­dence that BP Rene­gades was on the way back to the top. "We are hap­py with the way things are go­ing for us this year. The play­ers are ec­sta­t­ic about the tune and Du­vone has brought his own unique ap­proach to the arrange­ment," she said. With pan tun­ing by Bertram Kell­man, BP?Rene­gades hopes to re­claim Panora­ma glo­ry for 2012.