DAVID CUFFY

The se­mi-fi­nal round of the 2013 Na­tion­al Steel­band Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion start­ed 45 min­utes late at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day be­fore an emp­ty North Stand, save for se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, and a mere two dozen or so pa­trons in the Grand Stand.

Sched­uled to be­gin at noon, it was not un­til 12.45 pm that Adri­an Jaikaran played the Na­tion­al An­them, on an i-tablet util­is­ing the dig­i­tal pan app un­veiled by Pan Trin­ba­go last year, to open the event. Kei­th Di­az, pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, then of­fered wel­come re­marks, fol­lowed by a short prayer, af­ter which the first band, Hope Pan Groovers Steel Or­ches­tra of Hope, To­ba­go, ap­peared to be­gin com­pe­ti­tion in the Sin­gle Pan Bands cat­e­go­ry in which there were 33 par­tic­i­pants.

Its tune of choice was the late ca­lyp­son­ian Mae­stro's (Ce­cil Hume) 1977 com­po­si­tion Gold, penned in trib­ute to Hase­ly Craw­ford win­ning the 100 me­tres gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da. It was arranged by Tony Williams and played on in­stru­ments tuned by Rod­ney Stowe and Lloyd Gay.

The same se­lec­tion, arranged by Earl Brooks, was of­fered by the sec­ond band, Brim­blers, housed at the cor­ner of Tra­garete Road and White Street in Wood­brook. Led by Leon Ford, its in­stru­ments were tuned by John "Hon­ey Boy" Gee­tooah and Sher­win "Fes­sor" Pierre.

Fyz­abad 4th Di­men­sion of Khan Trace, Fyz­abad was up next to show­case a Richard Git­tens arrange­ment of Su­perBlue's 1992 Road March Jab Jab aka Wine On Some­thing. It was fol­lowed by the T&T Fire Ser­vice Steel Or­ches­tra, which tied for third place in the pre­lim­i­nary round of com­pe­ti­tion with the T&T De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra, with its se­lec­tion Kuch Gad­bad Hai, com­posed by the late Alphon­sus Cas­sel (Ar­row) in 1983 and sung by Babla and Kan­chan. It was arranged by Ter­rance "BJ" Mar­celle.

The T&T De­fence Force ap­peared in po­si­tion 12 at 3.25 pm to ren­der its Robert To­bit arrange­ment of the late Ald­wyn Robert's (Kitch­en­er) Iron Man, on in­stru­ments tuned by Her­man "Gup­py" Brown. In the in­ter­im, bands ap­pear­ing in­clud­ed Bel­mont Hi Larks (Bub­ble–Iw­er George), Ari­ma All Stars (Un­known Band–Su­perBlue), Star­dust (Jab Jab–Su­perBlue), Trinidad Nos­tal­gic (Dust In Dey Face–David Rud­der), San Juan All Stars (Big Bel­ly Man–MacFin­gall), Nos­trand Sym­pho­ny (Ethel–Su­perBlue), and La Cre­ole Pan Groove (We Come Out To Play–Win­ston Scar­bor­ough (De Fos­to).

San Juan East Side Steel Or­ches­tra, which topped the cat­e­go­ry in the pre­lim­i­nary round with a score of 266 points, was sched­uled to ap­pear in po­si­tion 19 to of­fer Rant and Rave, com­posed and sung in 1991 by Christo­pher Her­bert (Tam­bu), and arranged by Du­vonne Stew­art. Each of the 33 par­tic­i­pat­ing or­ches­tras in the cat­e­go­ry re­ceived an ap­pear­ance fee of $2,000.

The ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el com­prised Damion Phillip, Hugh Bor­de, Ian An­tho­ny, Joan­na Shortt, Roger Sar­di­nah and Tom­my Crichlow. Fol­low­ing the Sin­gle Pan Bands com­pe­ti­tion, 20 or­ches­tras were sched­uled to com­pete in the Small Bands cat­e­go­ry.