Pe­ter Ray Blood

St James busi­ness­man Earl Cros­by is un­cer­tain about the fu­ture of the an­nu­al We­Beat Fes­ti­val in St James. In its 12th year, We­Beat faces a dis­mal fu­ture as Cros­by con­tin­ues to re­ceive al­most no as­sis­tance and spon­sor­ship from gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate Trinidad, es­pe­cial­ly from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty of St James. We­Beat is the pre­mier cul­tur­al event in the town of St James out­side Hosay, and show­cas­es the na­tion's in­dige­nous arts and cul­ture, and ho­n­ours lu­mi­nar­ies and icons of the bustling west­ern town. Re­lat­ing some heartrend­ing sto­ries of the re­luc­tance by many to sup­port the ef­forts of Cros­by and the St James Com­mu­ni­ty Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee, Cros­by told of just one pre­vi­ous Cul­ture min­is­ter giv­ing any tan­gi­ble sup­port to the ef­fort in the dozen year of its ex­is­tence.

He added that last year, the Min­istry of Arts & Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism promised a sub­ven­tion but months af­ter the event gave him a per­cent­age of the orig­i­nal­ly promised sum. Cros­by said an­oth­er promise was made for the min­istry to as­sist this year but, as at the end of the fes­ti­val last Sat­ur­day, he was yet to re­ceive a cent, or be told the quan­tum of the 2012 sub­ven­tion. This year's We­Beat opened with a Hon­oree's Din­ner at Li­ons Civic Cen­tre in Wood­brook for 2012 hon­orees-ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Denyse Plum­mer and Trinidad Rio, and St James Tripo­lians leader Kei­th Simp­son. Dur­ing the week, the We Beat pro­gramme al­so in­clud­ed a keep fit burnout, a film night, lec­tures and a jazz evening. The Thurs­day night Pan Ex­plo­sion was tru­ly a night to re­mem­ber, fea­tur­ing a num­ber of pop­u­lar steel or­ches­tras. Host­ed by Phill Sim­mons, the evening was opened by Tripo­lians, fol­lowed by the Chi­nese Steel Or­ches­tra of T&T, PCS Sil­ver Stars and Wit­co Des­per­a­does.

Every band was ex­em­plary in its per­for­mance, but the Chi­nese steel­band not on­ly made a packed house sit up and take no­tice but al­so made pa­trons rise to their feet with a stand­ing ova­tion. Sil­ver Stars gave a riv­et­ting and ex­u­ber­ant per­for­mance, its young mem­bers dis­play­ing an ex­u­ber­ance like no oth­er per­for­mance for the night. The New­town band was par­tic­u­lar­ly out­stand­ing in its ex­e­cu­tion of One Mo­ment in Time and Phan­tom of the Opera. One wel­come in­no­va­tion at Pan Ex­plo­sion was Tripo­lians per­form­ing off stage dur­ing the change of bands. Among the dig­ni­taries seen on Thurs­day night at the St James Am­phithe­atre were deputy Port-of-Spain May­or Ke­iron Valen­tine; NCC chair­man and for­mer Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Patrick Arnold; Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials Al­lan "Pablo" Au­gus­tus and Ken Kerr; and ad­ver­tis­ing wiz Den­nis Ramdeen.

• Vin­tage Kaiso Night was held on Fri­day and was at­tend­ed by a stand­ing-room-on­ly au­di­ence. In fact, the We­Beat com­mit­tee had to go in search for ex­tra chairs to ac­com­mo­date a late surge of pa­trons. The night of retro ca­lyp­so was host­ed by Tom­my Joseph and CG, with ex­cel­lent mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment by liv­ing mu­si­cal leg­end Pel­ham God­dard and Roots. The billing in­clud­ed Roots­man, Con­tender, Singing Francine, Fun­ny, Du­ane O'Con­nor, Trinidad Rio, Denyse Plum­mer, Scrunter and Black Stal­in. Of the lot rais­ing my pores was Fun­ny, singing How Yuh Feel? Fun­ny Win and Hokey Pokey. Smart­ly at­tired in all-white, ca­lyp­so's pre­mier fun­ny man, took his time to ar­tic­u­late How Yuh Feel? mak­ing an ad­just­ment to this 25-year-old ca­lyp­so, to ob­serve this year's 50th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary. We­Beat 2012 came to a cli­max last Sat­ur­day night with its steel­band pa­rade along West­ern Main Road, wit­nessed by thou­sands and blessed with great weath­er and good mu­sic.

• Pan mu­sic re­turns to St James Am­phithe­atre on June 24 when icon An­tho­ny Williams is ho­n­oured for the 50th an­niver­sary of his steel­band Pan Am North Stars win­ning the 1962 Steel­band Mu­sic Fes­ti­val with a mem­o­rable ren­di­tion of Jo­hann Strauss' Voic­es of Spring. The 1962 fes­ti­val fi­nals, held at Queen's Hall in St Ann's, was a sig­nif­i­cant one as it co­in­cid­ed with T&T at­tain­ing in­de­pen­dence. The fi­nals were at­tend­ed by Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al des­ig­nate Sir Solomon Ho­choy and Pre­mier Dr Er­ic Williams. It will be a dou­ble cel­e­bra­tion as it is al­so the 81st birth­day of Williams. In ap­pre­ci­a­tion of those who have sup­port­ed him for the past 50 years, Williams will ho­n­our five arrangers. They are Ray Hol­man, Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, Earl Brooks, Robert Greenidge and Pel­ham God­dard.

There will al­so be live per­for­mances by Wit­co Des­per­a­does, St James Tripo­lians, Scrun­ters Pan Groove and St James North Stars.