Pe­ter Ray Blood

What do Ken Kerr, Ian Franklin, Roy Pierre, Bri­an Rigs­by, Andy Ale­ong, Ju­nior Hut­son, Di­ane Dupres, Jack­ie McK­ell, Deb­bie Mai­da, Pam Hen­ry, Cyn­thie Long, the Guis­sep­pi broth­ers and Sed­ley Joseph's fam­i­ly have in com­mon? The an­swer is they are all more than the age of 50 and are amongst the 200 or so diehard, avid lovers of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Wher­ev­er there's a steel­band event these peo­ple are amongst the first to be seen and here­in lies the prob­lem-when they've left us that will be the end of sup­port for any steel­band event out­side the an­nu­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.While hun­dreds of young peo­ple were falling over them­selves on Sat­ur­day night to pay scalpers $500 to get in­to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah for Tribe's C2K12 band launch, a pal­try 150 peo­ple paid $40 per head on Sun­day to hear some of the best steel or­ches­tras in the world at Cli­co Sforza­ta pan the­atre. The oc­ca­sion was a con­cert staged by the pop­u­lar St Au­gus­tine band to com­mem­o­rate its 36th an­niver­sary.

When it comes to lip-ser­vice and mim­ic­k­ry no­body does it bet­ter than us Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. With our lips we say that we love pan but deep down in­side we re­al­ly pre­fer Ja­maica's dance­hall, Amer­i­ca's hip hop, and even Eu­rope's tech­no mu­sic.This is why it's now up to Pan Trin­ba­go to step up to the plate and bat a win­ning in­nings for the progress and pro­lif­er­a­tion of the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. (Of course you will recog­nise that this is all yan­kee base­ball ter­mi­nol­o­gy.)It is in­cum­bent on Pan Trin­ba­go, the fore­most gov­ern­ing steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion on the plan­et to start think­ing out­side the box and come up with some in­no­v­a­tive strate­gies to mar­ket, pro­mote and sell pan.

Aside from see­ing all the same old faces by Sforza­ta on Sun­day among the oth­er things which struck me is that the pro­gramme's for­mat was no dif­fer­ent to what I used to en­joy al­most four decades ago when So­lo Har­monites used to stage live­ly Sun­day evening block­os at its Mor­vant pa­n­yard which sat on a rise over­look­ing the East­ern Main Road. Now, if that's not be­ing stuck in a rut, I don't don't know what is.

My oth­er ob­ser­va­tion is that there are no scalpers out­side steel­band events, an in­di­ca­tion that shows of this na­ture are not in pub­lic de­mand.In con­trast to last Sun­day at Sforza­ta pan the­atre, thou­sands are ex­pect­ed to con­verge on the East­ern Main Road in Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille, on Au­gust 7, for the an­nu­al Laven­tille Steel­band Fes­ti­val & Pa­rade. Of course, it's all free; the ide­al price for so-called lovers of pan.

Sforza­ta con­tin­ues its 36th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions to­mor­row night with Splash of Blue at its pan the­atre. Mu­sic will be by DJs KC Class is Class, Dr Hyde and Mr Q.By the way, there's more sweet pan mu­sic to be en­joyed this evening, when the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee stages Pan & Jazz Night, at the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.This event is awash with stars in pan and jazz, in­clud­ing Wit­co Des­per­a­does, TTDF Steel Orch, Pam­beri, An­til­lian All Stars, Ari­ma Gold­en Sym­pho­ny, and Tokyo, Chan­tal Es­delle & Moyenne. This too is Free.Back-ah-Yard is stag­ing MYS­TIC The Con­cert on Au­gust 3, at De Nu Pub, Wood­brook, at 8.30 pm.

Its artis­tic di­rec­tor, top Rap­so com­pos­er/artiste Sha­keela (Dix­ie-Ann Joseph) of Point Fortin said that the con­cert is a warm-up for the group's The Nur­ture the Youth Project re­gion­al con­cert, sched­uled for this month in St George's, Grena­da.MYS­TIC The Con­cert will show­case Broth­er Valenti­no, Sha­keela, Broth­er Re­sis­tance, Max­imus Prime, Den­nis­son Vin­cent, Net­to, Ak­i­lah Ri­ley, Free­town Col­lec­tive, Dami­an Melville and more.Back-ah-Yard has been host to more than a dozen con­certs since Sha­keela opened up her res­i­den­tial back­yard in March 2006, fea­tur­ing Back-ah-Yard fam­i­ly mem­bers, in­clud­ing Max­imus Prime, Is­sac Black­man & The Love Cir­cle, Muhum­mad Muwak­il, Broth­er Re­sis­tance, Mis­tah Shak, Sis­tah Ava, Atak­lan, Dami­an Melville, and oth­ers.Back-ah-Yard and The Nur­ture the Youth Project per­formed last month at the Sal­va­tion Army Head­quar­ters in Kingston, Ja­maica.