Pe­ter Ray Blood

There are no nuts­men in La Brea but res­i­dents do make a mean peanut ice cream. I found this out last Sat­ur­day when Pan Trin­ba­go pre­miered its 2012 Pan in D Coun­try­side se­ries of open-air con­certs at the Brighton Recre­ation Ground at Pt D'or Road. It was a pic­ture-per­fect evening for out­door ac­tiv­i­ty and a wel­come es­cape from the Queen's Park Oval where I was be­ing tor­tured, watch­ing Bar­ba­dos sound­ly trounce T&T be­fore lunch in a four-day tour­na­ment semi­fi­nal. La Brea res­i­dents came out in their num­bers to sup­port the event, con­tin­u­ing to prove that this Pan Trin­ba­go ini­tia­tive is one of its best in years.

The Pan Trin­ba­go shut­tle, com­pris­ing two yel­low-band maxi taxis, left its Park Street head­quar­ters around 4 pm and with­in 75 min­utes we were in La Brea on a Sun­day when traf­fic was al­most non-ex­is­tent on the road. I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised by the large num­ber of north­ern pan en­thu­si­asts who made the trip, along with ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of Pan Trin­ba­go, in­clud­ing reg­u­lars like Ju­lian "Vice" Cud­joe, Bev­er­ly Smart, Roy Pierre, Bri­an Rigs­by, Ken Kerr, Rawle Dove and "Put­ty" Lewis. Al­so seen wel­com­ing the pan crowd to La Brea was par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive Fitzger­ald Jef­fery. Mak­ing a brisk trade on the evening was Boodoo's Sports Bar, op­po­site the recre­ation ground, as spec­ta­tors flocked there for bev­er­ages of all as­sort­ments. Boodoo's neigh­bour­ing wa­ter­hole didn't do too bad­ly ei­ther, es­pe­cial­ly as it of­fered a de­li­cious bar­be­cue chick­en, done La Brea style.

Just be­fore 6 pm, Point Fortin's Jah Roots, one of the most au­then­tic pan 'round neck sides in the land, opened pro­ceed­ings. From then on, it was wall-to-wall pan, pro­duced by La Brea Nightin­gales, Panoson­ic Con­nec­tions, bird­song, Trinidad East Side Sym­pho­ny and Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, the lat­ter bring­ing the cur­tain down on the pro­gramme af­ter 11 pm.

Of course, though there were no prizes up for grabs, each steel­band tried to out­do the oth­er. Had it been a con­test though, it would have been a close toss-up be­tween Phase II and bird­song as the lat­ter aug­ment­ed its pan in­stru­ments with con­ven­tion­al ones, much to the en­joy­ment of all in at­ten­dance. One im­age I took with me on my way back to Port-of-Spain was that of the many young pan­nists and chil­dren who flocked around Len "Boogsie" Sharpe of Phase II seek­ing au­to­graphs and ad­vice from the liv­ing pan leg­end. For many, it was the first they'd been this close to Boogsie.

Pan Trin­ba­go ought to take a bow as Sat­ur­day's out­ing was a most de­light­ful one. Pan in D Coun­try­side trav­els to Man­zanil­la the end of this month and word on the ground is that res­i­dents there are wait­ing with bat­ed breath to wel­come their out-of-town guests and show off what culi­nary skill this idyl­lic sea­side vil­lage has to of­fer. Oh, one oth­er ob­ser­va­tion I made while in La Brea is that young peo­ple there are quite pro­duc­tive. As I sat on the road­side, out­side the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, at least a dozen moth­ers passed by push­ing prams car­ry­ing new­born ba­bies.

The two-crick­et and ca­lyp­so-have al­ways been close­ly paired. Who can for­get past clas­sics like Ra­mad­hin (Lord Kitch­en­er); Vi­vian Richards (Short Shirt); Gavaskar (Re­la­tor); Four Lara Four (Su­perBlue); and the more re­cent Ral­ly 'round the West In­dies by David Rud­der?

Well, the two will come to­geth­er again for five days, from April 16, at the Queen's Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, when the West In­dies comes up against Aus­tralia in the Sec­ond Test in the Dig­i­cel se­ries. En­sur­ing that ca­lyp­so and so­ca would def­i­nite­ly be in the mix is Trini­posse (TP) as it cel­e­brates its 20th an­niver­sary on the fourth day of play, on April 18. How­ev­er, pri­or to that date, TP is com­mem­o­rat­ing its mile­stone with a cool­er par­ty on April 14, in the Oval carpark, fea­tur­ing triple-crown C2K12 Machel Mon­tano, who is al­so ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the TP Stand the fol­low­ing day to per­form dur­ing the lunch break.

There is live en­ter­tain­ment in the TP Stand each day of the game, and some of the acts ex­pect­ed are Play Whe Groovy So­ca Monarch fi­nal­ist Prophet Ben­jamin, Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz, a tas­sa side and more. A high­light on April 18 in the TP Stand will be the of­fi­cial com­mem­o­ra­tion of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween TP and the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC).

A TP of­fi­cial told Pulse last week­end: "The TDC has brand­ed with 11 ten by ten his­tor­i­cal scenery pho­tos of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to be mount­ed at the en­trance to the stand dur­ing the game. "Our 20th an­niver­sary lo­go are al­so on gar­ments." On April 18, TP is al­so ho­n­our­ing in­di­vid­u­als who have sup­port­ed the group from its in­cep­tion, as well as pay­ing trib­ute to the mem­o­ry of two de­part­ed mem­bers-Sean "Gruff" Grosvenor and Bri­an Seenath. Adding to the am­bi­ence one can ex­pect in the TP Stand from April 15 are The Carib Girls and Dig­i­cel Del­e­gates on the usu­al plat­forms, and mu­sic by by DJ Kirk Cros­by Hi Fi­deli­ty.