Pe­ter Ray Blood

It's in­ter­na­tion­al­ly hailed as the sec­ond T&T Car­ni­val for the year and this year's fes­ti­val is an­tic­i­pat­ed to eclipse all pre­vi­ous stag­ings. Point Fortin Bor­ough Day Car­ni­val pa­rade of J'Ou­vert and mas bands, and steel­bands, is sched­uled for to­mor­row, from 4 am, and is ex­pect­ed to be at­tend­ed by thou­sands of vis­i­tors from home and abroad.

As with T&T-styled car­ni­vals world­wide, the usu­al sus­pects, in­clud­ing Lega­cy, Ron­nie & Caro Mas Band, Kalicha­ran Mas and Choco­late City, are ex­pect­ed to pa­rade the streets of the south­ern bor­ough in full force. How­ev­er, be­fore the "pret­ty mas" takes to the street, J'Ou­vert will be held in a pro­fu­sion of oil, paint, choco­late and fruity syrups.

Apart from Choco­late City, al­so ex­pect­ed to cre­ate an im­pact at J'Ou­vert is Play Time: A Tick­le Me Pink Af­fair, be­ing pre­sent­ed by Fete Rat The J'Ou­vert Band.

Trib­ute to Blue is the ti­tle of Choco­late City's band. Leader Dar­ren More­an said this week: "We are lit­er­al­ly go­ing to paint Point Fortin blue. Our cos­tumes are all-blue, of course, and even some of the drinks will be blue. We have a big sur­prise in stock, in terms of the artistes who will be per­form­ing on our mu­sic truck–with mu­sic by DJ Pro Au­dio Sounds."

More­an con­tin­ued: "This is our eighth year in Point and it is go­ing to be our biggest ever. The hype around Su­perBlue has made this year's event big­ger than ever. I have found a lot more for­eign­ers have been reg­is­ter­ing in the band. We in­tend leav­ing Port-of-Spain at 11 o'clock on Fri­day night, from Choco­late City head­quar­ters on Stone Street."

Al­so in to­mor­row morn­ing's J'Ou­vert is Odyssee Pro­duc­tion, the Siparia band which placed fourth in last year's com­pe­ti­tion.

This year, like Choco­late City, Odyssee will be pay­ing trib­ute to Su­perBlue and his achieve­ments in the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty. Com­ing un­der the ban­ner of D Naughty Pla­toons, Odyssee will be pre­sent­ing Three Cheers for Su­perBlue.

Odyssee is an all-in­clu­sive band and, for just $300, mas­quer­aders are get­ting break­fast, lunch, drinks and mu­sic.

The band will con­sist of three sec­tions, name­ly The Naughty Po­lice, Naughty Sailors and Naughty Cheer­lead­ers.

No stranger to mas in South, fash­ion first la­dy Jacqui Koon How is team­ing up with Shut Up and Wine to pro­duce a J'Ou­vert band in Point, for the sec­ond year.

Said Koon How this week: "Last year, we cov­ered our play­ers in choco­late but this year, they'll be lath­ered in straw­ber­ry syrup, not to men­tion ac­tu­al straw­ber­ries.

"The band is named Straw­ber­ry Ex­pe­ri­ence and I promise it will be a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence to both mas­quer­aders and spec­ta­tors."

Vet­er­an South mas pro­duc­er Wendy Kalicha­ran, who is al­so on board with Koon How, added: "We have done bands for San Fer­nan­do J'Ou­vert for five years, and this is our sec­ond year in Point. It is re­al­ly re­mark­able as the re­sponse con­tin­ues to be pos­i­tive­ly pro­gres­sive each time. Com­pared to big, pret­ty mas, J'Ou­vert mas is tru­ly an ex­cit­ing and ex­hil­a­rat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence." Kalicha­ran Mas has the record for achiev­ing the most South Band of the Year ti­tles.

Bounce Fuh Boro is the name of the mas­quer­ade band be­ing pre­sent­ed by Ron­nie & Caro The Mas Band to­mor­row evening. The band's con­voy de­parts its mas camp in Wood­brook, at the cor­ner of Ana and War­ren Streets, at 9.30 am, with break­fast be­ing served from 8 am. Ron­nie & Caro played The Mys­tery of the Cas­cadu­ra for C2K13.

Lega­cy co-pro­duc­er Juli­et de la Bastide said she and part­ner "Big Mike" An­toine are repris­ing their C2K13 pre­sen­ta­tion–From Trin­ba­go to Rio– to­mor­row. Apart from Lega­cy's usu­al horde of lo­cal mas­quer­aders, a re­gion­al con­tin­gent of mas peo­ple flew in­to the coun­try this week to join to­mor­row's rev­el­ry. A mul­ti­ple Na­tion­al Band of the Year win­ner, Lega­cy's Trin­ba­go to Rio won this year's Up­town Car­ni­val Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee's (UCIC) Large Band of the Year ti­tle, beat­ing out Show­time Trinidad's Kitch Man Mu­sic Leg­end and Bri­an Mac­Far­lane's Joy: The Fi­nale.

The week­end's ex­cite­ment ac­tu­al­ly be­gins as ear­ly as 10 o'clock this morn­ing when the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and TU­CO hosts the Vibe CT 105.1FM 2013 Road March prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny, at Vic­tor Chin Kit Park, Point Fortin. The 2013 Road March win­ner Austin "Su­perBlue" Lyons will be pre­sent­ed with his brand new car and chal­lenge tro­phy. To­day has been dubbed "Su­per Blue Day," in ho­n­our of this tal­ent­ed son of Point Fortin.

EVENTS

Point Fortin Bor­ough Fes­ti­val Events

TO­DAY

4 am: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 Su­perBlue Fri­day;

10 am: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and Tu­co host the 2013 Vibe CT 105.1FM Road March prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Vic­tor Chin Kit Park.

TO­MOR­ROW

4 am: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 J'Ou­vert;

4 pm: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 Tra­di­tion­al Mas;

5 pm: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 Pan for Blue.

Sun­day 5

11 am: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 Drag­on Boat Fes­ti­val & Sin­gle Pan Fi­es­ta, Guapo/Clifton Hill Beach;

3 pm: Bedrock, Lake As­phalt, Point Fortin;

6 pm: Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions 2013 Cool Down, Guapo/Clifton Hill Beach.