Aba A Luke

Machel Mon­tano says he will en­ter the 2012 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion. On stage at Saute´ Trin­ba­go 2011 on Sun­day, the two mil­lion dol­lar man, decked off in white car­go pants, white tee shirt and a white fit­ted cap, told his ador­ing fans that he'll be per­form­ing a ca­lyp­so called The Youngest Vet­er­an for the 2012 ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion.

Mon­tano was one of sev­er­al of T&T's top artistes who hit the stage at the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed cul­tur­al event which kicked off at 2 pm and end­ed prompt­ly at 8 pm. Ini­tial­ly card­ed to end at nine, pro­mot­er of the event-Cloud Nine-was forced to shut things down ear­ly dur­ing Mon­tano's per­for­mance. Some de­scribed it as an an­ti-cli­mat­ic end, but oth­ers rev­elled in the fact that for one day since the start of the Na­tion­al State of Emer­gency on Au­gust 21, they got a chance to breathe, en­joy and be true Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

Japs Fried Chick­en, De­stra and bac­cha­nal

With a smor­gas­bord of tasty de­lights avail­able to pa­trons, many dal­lied from one booth to the next, tast­ing cui­sine that ranged from Japs Fried Chick­en to Chi­nese, Cre­ole, veg­e­tar­i­an, sweets, pas­tries, In­di­an and much more. There seemed to have been a lik­ing, how­ev­er, for the veg­e­tar­i­an de­lights pre­sent­ed, with many ex­press­ing sur­prise that veg­gie cook­ing could taste so good. Amid the eat­ing, there were pock­ets of en­ter­tain­ment from the likes of the UWI De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts, moko jumbies, folk­lore en­ter­tain­ers, and Mun­gal Patasar and Pan­tar. At 4 pm, De­stra Gar­cia hit the stage and in­stant­ly made her pres­ence felt. Don­ning a long curly hair­style, streaked with red tones, the so­ca di­va im­mersed her­self in­to the oc­ca­sion and called on Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to be proud of their her­itage and cul­ture.

She dished out hits of the past like Bon­nie and Clyde and Car­ni­val, which she stat­ed should be the Car­ni­val an­them of the world. De­stra even delved in­to her two cur­rent sin­gles, Beau­ti­ful Day and Break­ing Away, both of which showed off her abil­i­ty to di­ver­si­fy by blend­ing so­ca with pop. Her reper­toire turned up a notch just about 20 min­utes in­to her set, and by that time the boots she'd been wear­ing came off, and so too did the broad sil­ver belt she'd walked on stage with. What re­mained of a chic white mi­ni dress was a loose fit­ting top and shorts, com­plete with bare­foot­ed ap­peal of true rev­ell­ry.

It was time for De­stra Gar­cia to erupt and so she did! Her 2009 sin­gle, Bac­cha­nal, brought back mem­o­ries of that year and she per­formed the track with ven­om. She even dropped her body to the ground send­ing fans in­to a fren­zy and pho­tog­ra­phers im­me­di­ate­ly to her side. De­stra Gar­cia, many com­ment­ed, was back as her fans had known her pri­or to the birth of ba­by, Xai, and with that in mind, many start­ed buzzing that she'd be hot­ter than ever in C2K12.

Hits and more hits

Next up was a mas pre­sen­ta­tion by a new band for C2K12 called K2K. The pre­sen­ta­tion, The Wa­ters-Seas of Con­scious­ness, was quite unique, as it strayed from the typ­i­cal biki­ni and beads mas and showed off el­e­ments of sto­ry­telling and tra­di­tion­al mas. It por­trayed a lit­tle more cos­tume, beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed, and a good at­tempt to of­fer some­thing new to the mas mar­ket. Its goal to be fu­tur­is­tic was met with a lit­tle re­sis­tance by some in the crowd, who sim­ply chose to so­cialise rather than take it all in.

With drinks flow­ing like wa­ter through­out the night cour­tesy An­gos­tu­ra, the mood of those in at­ten­dance was that of true Tri­ni en­joy­ment. Dressed fash­ion­ably, the women ex­ud­ed Caribbean beau­ty. But when it was time for Machel to hit the stage, they al­so showed that Tri­ni women know how to par­ty.

Ex­press­ing his de­light to be home, Mon­tano ex­plained that he'd left the coun­try one day af­ter the State of Emer­gency took ef­fect. His mood re­flect­ed his pas­sion for home and he shared every bit of his charis­ma with the crowd. A crew from Ja­maica, who stood up front, was privy to fre­quent op­por­tu­ni­ties to chat with, and even touch the taipan. From his 2011 hits, Il­le­gal, Bend Over and Hard Wuk, to pre­vi­ous crowd pleasers like Oil and Mu­sic to which he'd mount­ed the stage, Make Love fea­tur­ing Bu­ju Ban­ton and oth­er tracks, and even new hits like Dif­fer­ent Wine-Mon­tano pleased. With his "wife" look­ing on from the back, Mon­tano warned his fe­male fans to be cau­tious of the way they touched, nev­er­the­less giv­ing them all they wished for in a so­ca set that he said was not re­hearsed pri­or to the show.

Join­ing Mon­tano was Ben­jai, who swanki­ly took over the stage with the col­lab­o­ra­tive sin­gle, Amnesty, be­fore fir­ing things up with Tri­ni. Fans en­joyed his per­for­mance im­mense­ly, and he showed his ap­pre­ci­a­tion by giv­ing them a lit­tle wine, much to their de­light. Chut­ney Monarch Rik­ki Jai al­so per­formed with Mon­tano and to­geth­er they sang Mor Tor, with Jai sub­se­quent­ly giv­ing pa­trons a cou­ple of his sin­gles be­fore leav­ing the stage. The event was en­joyed and while its ear­ly con­clu­sion may have dis­ap­point­ed some, most were sat­is­fied with all they'd re­ceived in a show that was billed as and de­liv­ered a true Trin­ba­go cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence.