There will be no Ronnie & Caro or Legacy masqueraders on the streets this year for the costume street parade of Point Fortin Borough celebrations.
Legacy leader Mike Antoine said he is involved in "a very important project" for a state entity, while Ronnie Mc Intosh and his wife Caroline have organised a boat cruise on Sunday aboard the Point Lomas Tours vessel.
Billed as De River Come Down...and meet the Sea, boarding is at noon at The Waterfront Pier, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain. A door prize of a free costume for Carnival 2015 is in store for some lucky patron.
In Point Fortin, the masquerade gets going at 4 am and J'Ouvert and popular Port-of-Spain band Chocolate City will be there in full force.
This week, Chocolate City leader Darren Morean said the band is reprising its 2014 mas–Brasilia. He said buses leave Chocolate City mas camp, at the corner of Stone and Flament Streets, this morning at 9 o'clock. They return from Point Fortin tomorrow at noon.
Erphaan Alves, a finalist in this year's International Soca Monarch Breakout Artiste competition, is expected to be a guest performer on the Chocolate City music truck, along with Boom Champions.
Also expected to be on the streets early in the morning is Out & Bad Girls with its presentation titled Ding Bats & Baby Dolls.
J'Ouvert will be followed by the Legends After J'Ouvert Street Party, at 11 am, along Agard Road, Point Fortin. The traditional and pretty mas parade is scheduled tomorrow from 4 pm, with Pan-On-The-Move beginning one hour after.
National Carnival Committee (NCC) Regional Carnival committee chairman Don Sylvester revealed that the NCC is sponsoring the traditional character parade. Among the traditional mas characters expected to adorn the streets of the borough are pierrot grenades, moko jumbies, dame lorraines, warahoons and fancy Indians, jab jabs, gorillas and fancy sailors.
Sylvester said the NCC will also provide musical accompaniment, inclusive of tamboo bamboo and tassa. Sylvester has been described as "chief cook and bottle washer" for all major traditional and regional mas in the country.
The steelband parade is another crowd-puller at tomorrow's activities. Mayor Clyde Paul emphasised that the steelband event is not a competition, but bands are required to play a 1989 piece and their 2014 Panorama selection.
This year's pan parade is expected to be the most musical of all, especially as all the finalists in this year's National Panorama competition are expected to participate, including champion Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove.
The tempo is expected to be very hot, especially for the 1989 song selection. That year the Panorama champion was Renegades, playing Jit Samaroo's arrangement of Winford "Joker" Devine's Somebody. The runners-up were Phase II and Fonclaire, respectively, both playing Len "Boogsie" Sharpe's Fire Down Below. The hot songs that year were many and varied and included Tambu's Free Up (the Road March); Cro Cro's Wey Pan Reach; Crazy's Nani Wine and Ray Holman's Carnival is for Woman.
There should also be much interest in the selections of Phase II and Trinidad All Stars, given the one-point margin which separated these two awesome steel orchestras at the final of this year's National Panorama.
Mayor Paul disclosed that Lopinot's Supernovas is making a special guest appearance in the pan parade to perform a tribute to Jit Samaroo, father of the band's musical director, Amrit Samaroo. This year, Supernovas copped the Small Bands National Panorama title playing De Fosto's In De Minor.
The 34th annual Point Fortin Borough Celebrations resume on Sunday at 10 am with the Dragon Boat Festival, at Guapo/Clifton Hill Beach, Point Fortin. The Bedrock: The Red Carpet Affair, at Lake Asphalt is on at 4 pm. The Borough Cool Down takes place at 6 pm also at the Guapo/Clifton Hill Beach.
Calypso has also been featuring through the week at a number of privately-held productions. Point Fortin is regarded as a "nursery" for producing some of this country's best calypsonians, including SuperBlue (Austin Lyons); Fay-Ann Lyons; Iwer George; Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins); The Preacher (Barnet Henry); Naya George; Wayne T; King Luta (Morel Peters); and, the late Mighty Duke (Kelvin Pope).
The live entertainment pot was supposed to bubble last night with the staging of two major events–Pan on the Avenue at Borough Parkway and Tobago Night at Victor Chin Kit Park.
Steelbands forborough celebrations
�2 Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove
�2 Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars
�2 Republic Bank Exodus
�2 bpTT Renegades
�2 PCS Nitrogen Silver Stars
�2 Witco Desperadoes
�2 CAL Invaders
�2 Skiffle
�2 NLCB Fonclaire
�2 T&TEC Tropical Angel Harps
�2 NGC La Brea Nightingales
�2 Pan Elders
�2 Couva Joylanders
�2 RBC Redemption Sound Setters
�2 NLCB Buccooneers
�2 Supernovas
�2 Tornadoes