Pe­ter Ray Blood

Per­haps it was the $50 ad­mis­sion charged but the turnout at last Fri­day's Pan Night, at bpTT Rene­gades pan the­atre, on Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, was small. In stark con­trast, the mu­sic played though was large.Host­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go as part of its Pan Month pro­gramme, pan lovers rel­ished a var­ied menu of ex­quis­ite mu­sic served by Uni Stars, Su­per­novas, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, NL­CB Fon­claire and Wit­co Des­per­a­does.Uni Stars of Laven­tille, field­ing sev­er­al young mu­si­cians, opened pro­ceed­ings, fol­lowed by Su­per­novas of Lopinot.

This east­ern band per­formed a mes­meris­ing reper­toire of mu­sic, arranged by Am­rit Sama­roo, son of leg­endary pan mu­si­cian Jit Sama­roo.Each se­lec­tion evoked fren­zied re­sponse but it was the band's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the late Lord Blakie's Hold de Pussy that re­al­ly en­er­gised the venue.With arranger Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore in at­ten­dance, south band Fon­claire was thor­ough­ly en­ter­tain­ing. Equal­ly en­joy­able was Sound Spe­cial­ists.As is now a norm at many steel­band events, Des­per­a­does was the last band to per­form, do­ing so af­ter mid­night and gen­er­at­ing its usu­al ex­cite­ment.As Pan Trin­ba­go's ob­ser­vance of Pan Month (Au­gust) draws to a close, the steel­band cal­en­dar is packed with ex­cit­ing events, be­gin­ning on the evening of Au­gust 22, when CAL In­vaders steel or­ches­tra stages its ea­ger­ly await­ed Ver­sa­til­i­ty con­cert at Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um, at the Na­pa, Port-of-Spain.

Un­der the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion of Ard­din Her­bert, Ver­sa­til­i­ty will fea­ture 2013 Road March cham­pi­on and joint In­ter­na­tion­al Pow­er So­ca Monarch Su­perBlue, H2O Ph­lo, Richard Pierre, Aaron Dun­can, Rem­bunc­tion, Tam­ba Gwin­di, Karen Ec­cles, Bish­op Anstey High School Choir, Diego Mar­tin Foot­print Drum­mers, In­vaders Youth steel or­ches­tra and more.Guest con­duc­tors for the show are Dr Jean­nine Re­my and Lor­raine Grander­son, and show­time is 7.30 pm. On Au­gust 25, Melo­di­ans Steel Or­ches­tra will host its an­niver­sary com­mem­o­ra­tion, at its pa­n­yard on Bel­lamy Street, Ari­ma, from 8 pm.Pan Trin­ba­go and many of its mem­bers al­so have events sched­uled across the land for the fi­nal two days of the month of Au­gust. Down South, at OW­TU Palms Club, Pointe-a-Pierre Road, San Fer­nan­do, Pan Trin­ba­go's South/Cen­tral Re­gion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with OW­TU, will hold Steel the Night Away on Au­gust 30.

Sched­uled to be­gin at 9 pm, mu­sic will be by San City, Dar­ren Shep­pard's Fu­sion and Sapo­phon­ics steel or­ches­tras, and DJ Richard C.That same night, in the na­tion's cap­i­tal, at Rene­gades pan the­atre, the nine-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­ons will hold its in­no­v­a­tive Sin­gle Pan Ses­sion, at 8 pm.For the very rea­son­able fee of $40 pan lovers will be en­ter­tained by some of the na­tion's best Sin­gle Pan bands, in­clud­ing La Cre­ole Pan Groove, Brim­blers, Star­dust, St James Tripo­lians, City Sun Val­ley, Scrun­ters Pan Groove and Uni Stars. As is now tra­di­tion­al, Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz Steel will be the head­line steel­band for the an­nu­al Au­gust 30 Ice Picks Sports Club par­ty, at The Har­vard Club, St James. This year's par­ty is billed as Back With a Bang.

Al­so a tra­di­tion, sev­er­al steel­bands, in­clud­ing Wood­brook Play­boyz, White Oak Star­lift, CAL In­vaders and Trinidad All Stars, are host­ing In­de­pen­dence Day brunch at their re­spec­tive pa­n­yards.From 9 am, on In­de­pen­dence Day, Rene­gades too will join in this fun by hav­ing a "Pay by your shoe size!" lime, with mu­sic by Rene­gades Youth Or­ches­tra, St James Tripo­lians and DJ KC Klass is Class.The day ends with the In­de­pen­dence Dance be­ing held by Pan Trin­ba­go's South/Cen­tral Re­gion, at Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do, from 9 pm.