JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Car­ni­val 2014

Steelband wins Band of the Year

by

20140306

Mas and steel­band his­to­ry was made this year in the Band of the Year com­pe­ti­tion, staged by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), when a steel­band won the cov­et­ed ti­tle for the sec­ond time since the com­pe­ti­tion was in­au­gu­rat­ed in 1963.

When the NC­BA post­ed its of­fi­cial re­sults on Wednes­day night on its Web site, it re­vealed that Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars' pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled Sailors Ashore at a Trop­i­cal Fi­es­ta topped the com­pe­ti­tion.

Ex­act­ly 50 years ago, an­oth­er steel­band, Ju­nior Pouchet's Sil­ver Stars teamed up with Rus­sell Char­ter to pro­duce the win­ning Gul­liv­er's Trav­els. Cos­tumes for that pre­sen­ta­tion were de­signed by artist Pat Chu Foon. Gul­liv­er's Trav­el's al­so copped the Band of the Peo­ple's Choice Award. The 1963 run­ners-up to Char­ter and Sil­ver Stars were Cito Ve­lasquez (Splen­dour of the East) and Des­per­a­does (Land of the Zu­lus), re­spec­tive­ly.

All Stars hit the main stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day with al­most 2,000 mas­quer­aders in tow. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the leg­endary Duke Street steel­band mu­si­cal­ly were Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, St James Tripo­lians, Harlem Syn­co­pa­tors, Tu­na­puna Rhythm Sec­tion and the Road March­ing Band Rhythm Sec­tion, the lat­ter ac­tu­al­ly hav­ing a live horn sec­tion com­pris­ing res­i­dents of St Mary's Home.

Ec­sta­t­ic about his band's win, All Stars' man­ag­er Beres­ford "Berry" Hunte said: "We worked very hard for this achieve­ment and it's a good feel­ing to win. I am elat­ed though this win doesn't make up for los­ing Panora­ma. It's two dif­fer­ent things. They just can­not leave All Stars out of Car­ni­val. We have been in Car­ni­val for many, many years, and if we have to go to the So­cadrome to be recog­nised that we'll al­so do."

All Stars, play­ing Shirlaine Hen­drick­son's Ex­cite­ment, was edged out of first place in this year's Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal by Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, by a mere point. This re­sult un­earthed much con­tro­ver­sy and de­bate in steel­band cir­cles, es­pe­cial­ly amongst All Stars' loy­al fans.

As is the norm, this year's Car­ni­val was im­mersed in con­tro­ver­sy. One of the ma­jor ques­tions be­ing asked is: "How did Ron­nie & Caro's Riv­er Come Down and K2K's Vie–The Rise of Sanc­tu­ary, not make it among the top six plac­ings of the Band of the Year com­pe­ti­tion?" Both bands hand­some­ly won the Down­town Band of the Year ti­tles for Large and Medi­um mas bands, and both pa­rad­ed be­fore the judges at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

In­sist­ing that the re­sults were le­git­i­mate, NC­BA chair­man David Lopez, not dis­clos­ing the names of bands, said yes­ter­day, that some were pe­nalised by the Pa­rade of the Bands au­di­tors for in­fring­ing the rules of the com­pe­ti­tion.

Of­fi­cial­ly, run­ners-up to All Stars were Pa­parazzi Car­ni­val (Cen­ter­stage); Lega­cy (Na­ture's Touch); Tri­ni Rev­ellers (The Sul­tan's Palace); Dream Team (I Am); and, Show­time (The Awak­en­ing of Mas).

Just Wee & Friends, pro­duced by Earl Cros­by and An­n­marie Placide, won the Medi­um Band of the Year ti­tle with Ziegfeld Fol­lies, ahead of Mas Pas­sion (Ta­ban­ca); De Core (Recla­ma­tion); D'Krewe (Saga of the Open Seas); and, Im­age Na­tion (Riv­er of Life).

An­oth­er con­tro­ver­sial re­sult was the Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, won by Chucky (Rod­er­ick Gor­don). Fol­low­ing an as­tound­ing per­for­mance at the se­mi-fi­nal at Skin­ner Park, Mr Shak was tout­ed to be the even­tu­al win­ner. He placed third in the fi­nal, be­hind Chucky and Kurt Allen.

This year's Car­ni­val saw sev­er­al changes and in­no­va­tions on all fronts. One of the main in­no­va­tions was The So­cadrome, a new mas venue at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, pro­duced by five bands–Tribe, Bliss, Yu­ma, Harts Int and Mas Pas­sion. The lat­ter two nev­er made it to the new venue. The So­cadrome was sup­posed to have tak­en ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 mas­quer­aders and some 100 mu­sic and ser­vice trail­ers off the main Pa­rade of the Bands route.

Many are claim­ing that this new venue caused a crit­i­cal short­age of mas and mas­quer­aders to the Down­town venue on South Quay and oth­er mas venues in the in­ner city.

While some Wood­brook res­i­dents along the ex­tend­ed pa­rade route were ear­li­er adamant that mas should not pass through their neigh­bour­hood and some con­tin­ued to protest, many were seen danc­ing in the ve­ran­das and gal­leries to the mu­sic of the bands.

There was al­so con­tro­ver­sy about the tra­di­tion­al pa­rade route for bands, in­clu­sive of down­town Car­ni­val, a dis­pute which in­clud­ed Port-of-Spain may­or Tim Kee and the NC­BA.

This re­sult­ed in two sep­a­rate pa­rade routes for the Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day pa­rade of ju­nior mas bands, one be­gin­ning at Adam Smith Square, Wood­brook and the oth­er in down­town Port-of-Spain.

It is less than one year to Car­ni­val Mon­day 2015, sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 16. Al­ready the main stake­hold­ers of Car­ni­val have be­gun plans for next year's fes­ti­val. One such per­son is com­pos­er Ken­neth Charles who al­ready has two songs for next year's Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. They are ti­tled Love Me and Pan Com­posers. Last year, Charles' Ham­mer Time, sung by Nicole Greaves, was the Panora­ma pick of Wit­co Des­per­a­does. This year, he wrote Pan Scan­dal, al­so sung by Greaves and played by three steel­bands.

With the at­ten­dant bac­cha­nal of this year's fes­ti­val one can on­ly hope that the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) and its spe­cial in­ter­est groups have al­ready com­menced se­ri­ous di­a­logue for pro­duc­ing the 2015 Car­ni­val.

Yes­ter­day, Lopez added that, con­trary to pop­u­lar per­cep­tion, his or­gan­i­sa­tion doesn't be­gin plan­ning Car­ni­val two months be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day. He said: "We are per­pet­u­al­ly in plan­ning mode. For in­stance, now that the two days of mas have passed, we are very much in­to work en­sur­ing that win­ners get their prizes."

The fi­nal ma­jor Car­ni­val 2014 pro­duc­tion takes place to­mor­row at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain when Pan Trin­ba­go stages Steel Plus. For­mer­ly brand­ed as Champs in Con­cert, this show fea­tures most of the cham­pi­ons for the fes­ti­val in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Panora­ma win­ner Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove.

Oth­er se­nior steel­band cham­pi­ons ex­pect­ed to per­form are Pan El­ders, Pan Jam­mers, San Juan East Side and Su­per No­vas. Al­so on the billing are ju­nior pan champs bpTT Rene­gades, Prov­i­dence QRC and St Paul's An­gli­can.

Ca­lyp­so is al­so a ma­jor com­po­nent of Steel Plus and on the billing are Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Chucky; Ex­tem­pore Monarch Bri­an Lon­don; Chut­ney So­ca Monarch KI; and, Na­tion­al Ju­nior Monarch Ronal­do Lon­don.

Mas is al­so in the brew and among the cham­pi­ons to ap­pear are King of Car­ni­val Wade Madray (Quars al Sa­hara � Desert Sting); Queen of Car­ni­val Peo­ple Marchan (Za­ma­ra, Mi­rage of the Oa­sis); and the ju­nior king and queen.

Kel­ly Green & Har­mo­ny will pro­vide mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment at Steel Plus.Tick­ets, gen­er­al seat­ing at the Grand Stand, priced at $200 are on sale at Cleve's Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain; Cros­by's, St James; Kam's, Long Cir­cu­lar Mall; Pan Trin­ba­go South/Cen­tral Re­gion­al Of­fice, Park Street and San Fer­nan­do; and Queen's Park Sa­van­nah Tick­et Booth, Port-of-Spain, on the day of the show.

What is patent­ly ob­vi­ous is that there is need for ur­gent de­bate and plan­ning for the fu­ture of Car­ni­val. De­bate ac­tu­al­ly be­gins to­day when the George Son­ny God­dard Steel­band Town Hall Meet­ing is held at Port-of-Spain City Hall, Knox Street, to­day at 1 pm.

With God­dard's son George Ger­ald and Emile Bor­de, son of pan vet­er­an Hugh Bor­de, at the helm of this ini­tia­tive, myr­i­ad chal­lenges fac­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and its fu­ture will be de­bat­ed.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored