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Monday, July 14, 2025

Reliving the glory days of Calypso Spektakula

by

20140113

Dur­ing the 1980's in­to the 1990's up­per Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain would come alive dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son from open­ing night of the Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la ca­lyp­so tent at the Spek­taku­la Fo­rum. Peo­ple, from the reg­u­lar work­ing man to the wealth­i­est per­son­al­i­ty, flocked to the venue's doors to catch the pre­miere of what was then the most ex­cit­ing tent on the ca­lyp­so cir­cuit and they packed the Fo­rum every night through­out the sea­son.

For more than 25 years, Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la pre­sent­ed the most sought af­ter ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and so­ca artistes of the day, as well as served as the nur­tur­ing ground for artistes who would even­tu­al­ly stand among the best of the best.

The Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la treat­ed pa­trons not on­ly with great per­for­mances fea­tur­ing the top artistes de­liv­er­ing ca­lyp­soes ex­plor­ing so­cial and po­lit­i­cal is­sues through ei­ther sting­ing lyrics or hu­mour, but al­so the hottest so­ca, chut­ney so­ca and rag­ga so­ca.

In 2014, Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions is re­light­ing the flame of Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la as it will, on Feb­ru­ary 14 and 15, at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), Keate Street, Port-of-Spain present Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la Through The Years.

This show will be a nos­tal­gic jour­ney re­vis­it­ing the won­der­ful Car­ni­vals of yes­ter­day and the 25 plus glo­ri­ous years of Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la.

Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la was the place where David Rud­der launched his cam­paign to com­pete in the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, which he won in 1986 along with two oth­er cov­et­ed ti­tles, the Na­tion­al Road and Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Young King ti­tles mak­ing him the first ever triple crown win­ner.

Rud­der re­mained at the Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la even as his in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer took off.

Rud­der will be per­form­ing at the show de­liv­er­ing some of his hits through the years.

Al­so on stage for Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la Through the Years will be eight-time Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Chalk­dust who was al­so at the tent from its in­cep­tion. Trinidad Rio built a fine ca­reer at Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la with his unique brand of hu­mor­ous so­cial and po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary and al­so sto­ry­telling through comedic ca­lyp­soes.

The king of hu­mor­ous ca­lyp­soes, Fun­ny, will al­so per­form at the show along with Lu­ta and the world's most pro­fi­cient ex­tem­po ca­lyp­son­ian, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters.

These are on­ly some of the artistes in the im­pres­sive line­up for the show that will be host­ed by Tom­my Joseph who had au­di­ences in stitch­es night­ly for the quar­ter decade of Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la.

He will be joined by Nik­ki Cros­by, the first fe­male to serve as MC in a ca­lyp­so tent.

From its in­cep­tion the Roy Cape All Stars served as the house band ac­com­pa­ny­ing the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and so­ca artistes per­form­ing at the tent and they will be there to recre­ate those won­der­ful mo­ments along with Wayne Bruno and his band, which took over ac­com­pa­ni­ment du­ties in 1994 when Cape moved on to oth­er pur­suits.

Frank Mar­tineau, Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions CEO, was quick to point out that be­cause of the lim­it­ed amount of artistes that can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed; it's cre­at­ing a night­mare to fi­nalise a cast.

He said last week­end: "There have been so many artistes that stood be­hind Spek­taku­la through the years, I am sin­cere­ly hop­ing that those who were not se­lect­ed would not get vex with stage man­ag­er Lennox (Tou­s­saint) and my­self."

The Ca­lyp­so Spek­taku­la was the pro­duc­tion that set new stan­dards for ca­lyp­so tents from its de­but.

The pro­duc­ers in­tro­duced the lat­est light­ing and light­ing ef­fects tech­nol­o­gy of the day and al­so em­ployed the most ad­vanced sound sys­tem.

They al­so in­cor­po­rat­ed pro­fes­sion­al dancers to ac­com­pa­ny some of the ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and fea­tured the most pop­u­lar acts from across the oth­er Caribbean is­lands and the US in­clud­ing Ar­row, Beck­et and Swal­low.

For more in­fo about the Spek­taku­la Pro­mo­tions show on Feb­ru­ary 14 and 15 at Na­pa, Keate Street, Port-of-Spain, con­tact 682-7887.

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