An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Why hasn't the Gov­ern­ment graced the streets of Port-of-Spain with a walk of fame? Af­ter be­ing re­mind­ed of the ac­com­plish­ments of BP Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra at the band's an­nu­al post-Car­ni­val "Thank You" par­ty last Sun­day, it is time for this coun­try's en­ter­tain­ment achiev­ers to be tru­ly im­mor­talised. Kitch­en­er, Mu­ni­lal Sagar Sookraj, Nan­coo "Ras" Singh, Bertie Mar­shall, Jit Sama­roo, Machel Mon­tano, Bri­an Lara, Hase­ly Craw­ford, Wendy Fitzwilliam and Jean Pierre, to name a few, should be ho­n­oured in this man­ner, their names in stars, not un­like that of Hol­ly­wood's fa­mous in Los An­ge­les. With peo­ple like rap­per Nik­ki Mi­naj and di­va Heather Headley, who are known in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and have their navel string buried in home soil, why shouldn't we want to cap­i­talise on their fame? "Af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing ex­it from the na­tion­al steel­pan fi­nal in 2011, BP Rene­gades mem­bers are sat­is­fied with their fourth-place fin­ish in this year's com­pe­ti­tion," said cap­tain Can­dice An­drews at the band's Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain pan the­atre.

An­drews, Rene­gades' first fe­male cap­tain, said: "Al­though we did not place first, we did every­thing we were sup­posed to do as a band. "Some sup­port­ers think that we did too much, but we are con­tent with our per­for­mance." An­drews, a dou­ble sec­ond pan­nist, ex­plained that her mu­si­cians tried to ven­ture in­to the minds of the judges, to get them to un­der­stand what they were look­ing for. She added: "As far as we are con­cerned, we achieved our goals. When we did not qual­i­fy for the fi­nals last year, many bands were re­laxed be­cause they know we will al­ways be a treat." The evening's af­fair at­tract­ed a healthy rep­re­sen­ta­tion from oth­er steel­bands, in­clud­ing 2012 Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars man­ag­er Beres­ford "Berry" Hunte, crack­shot pan­nist Dane Gul­ston, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus man­ag­er Ainsworth Mo­hammed, So­lo Har­monites of­fi­cial and for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Owen Ser­rette. Al­so seen in at­ten­dance was NCDF of­fi­cial Pe­ter "Blue" Rey­nald. Vet­er­an Rene­gades arranger Jit Sama­roo was al­so present, to­geth­er with his son Am­rit, and new arranger Du­vonne Stew­art. Live en­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by Dex­ter "Blaxx" Stew­art of Roy Cape All Stars, Ben­jai and All­rounder. Come­di­enne Nik­ki Cros­by, wardrobed as her al­ter ego Gladys, em­ceed the show. With food sup­plied by Al­ber­to's, and a bar which seemed im­pos­si­ble to "bust," every­thing was free at Rene­gades pan the­atre on Sun­day, and the ven­ture had the full sup­port of not just fans, but mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty of all ages.