Pe­ter Ray Blood

The nine-day We­Beat St James Live Fes­ti­val staged by the St James Com­mu­ni­ty Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee (CIC) be­gins this evening and runs un­til June 15, at The Am­phithe­atre, West­ern Main Road, St James.

This year, the 14th edi­tion, will ho­n­our Fred­die Kissoon HBM, ADB, and Kleah Man­nette. Kissoon is a suc­cess­ful play­wright as well as founder/di­rec­tor of the Trinidad Strolling Play­ers Com­pa­ny, while Man­nette is an ho­n­our roll stu­dent and re­cip­i­ent of the Dr Leroy Clarke Tro­phy for the Most Out­stand­ing Art Stu­dent. The Hon­oree Night will be held this evening.

We­Beat which cel­e­brates T&T's cul­tur­al her­itage and di­ver­si­ty will in­clude ad­di­tion­al events such as ART­Beat (June 11) at which ar­ti­sans can dis­play their crafts; book launch by na­tion­al foot­ball icon Lin­coln Phillips; We­Cruise aboard The Trea­sure Queen on June 14; and, the merg­ing of the pop­u­lar steel­band pa­rade with that of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion's on June 15, from 3 pm.

An­oth­er ad­di­tion is to­mor­row night's We Par­ty–The Pur­ple Pas­sion, host­ed by We­Beat St James Live and Vic­to­ria's & The Good­men Crew, at the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Of­fi­cers Mess, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James. Mu­sic will be by DJs Spe­cial De­liv­ery and Sen­sa­tion­al Noel.

Reg­u­lar at­trac­tions in­clude We­Film Night (June 7), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the T&T Film Fes­ti­val14, fea­tur­ing Dal Puri Di­as­po­ra. The Health Day (June 9), is in con­junc­tion with the PoS North Li­ons and the North West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty; We Treat (June 8); and WeTalk–His­to­ri­an Talk Show with the theme The Re­turn of the Mu­nic­i­pal Rights to the City of Port-of-Spain–The 100th An­niver­sary" (June 9). These events are free.

On June 10, the fo­cus will be on hu­mour when Kissoon's Strolling Play­ers stage three plays: Girls Want­ed, Beau­ty Con­test and Doo Doo.

June 12 is des­ig­nat­ed Steel & Jazz fea­tur­ing PSC Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars, Le­ston Paul, Clif­ford Charles and Rhap­sody, while We Kaiso, fea­tur­ing young and vet­er­an artistes is on June 13. For these events the ad­mis­sion fees range from $50 to $150.

Plans are afoot to in­clude In­dulge To­ba­go, a non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion, to show­case To­ba­go's rich her­itage and to in­clude a blue food fes­ti­val as well.

We­Beat 14 is be­ing backed by the Min­is­ter of Tourism Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Hadeed and the min­istry; Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar; Carib Brew­ery, Co­ca Co­la, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion, Rent-A-Amp, Me­dia 21, RBC Roy­al Bank, The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion, Ex­im Bank, Jhul­lian Graph­ics, Ken­neth Atwell Cre­ations and Cros­by's.

Steel­band week­endin town and coun­try

MP Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan is as­sist­ing Pan Trin­ba­go with its sec­ond in­stal­ment of Pan in De Coun­try­side on June 14 at the Tabaquite Recre­ation Grounds, Main Road, Tabaquite. Al­so as­sist­ing Pan Trin­ba­go will be mem­bers of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

The con­cert be­gins at 5 pm and Pan Trin­ba­go is pro­vid­ing a shut­tle ser­vice, with lim­it­ed avail­able seat­ing from its head­quar­ters on Park Street, Port-of-Spain, from 2 pm.

NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders, Petrotrin Hat­ters, Pan El­ders, Uni Stars, Pan Jam­mers and La Cre­ole Pan Groove are ex­pect­ed to per­form. Al­so in­clud­ed is res­i­dent Pan Trin­ba­go disc jock­ey KC ...Klass Is Class.

Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons are ex­pect­ed to pul­sate with pan on Fa­ther's Day (June 15) at the 100th an­niver­sary of the City of Port-of-Spain.

ands from the in­ner city and east Port-of-Spain will pa­rade from Pic­cadil­ly Greens while bands from the west will be­gin their trek to town from the St James Am­phithe­atre, co­in­cid­ing with the cli­max of We Beat. Bands in­clud­ing Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, bpTT Rene­gades and Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars will con­verge at Wood­ford Square for a pan ex­trav­a­gan­za.

Trib­utes to Rob­bie

Robert Greenidge was ho­n­oured by The Tri­ni Posse of Cony­ers, Geor­gia, USA, on May 26. Greenidge was in town for a con­cert with The Jim­my Buf­fett Coral Reefer Band in At­lanta and, in ap­pre­ci­a­tion for his con­tri­bu­tion to the steel­pan world, he was award­ed with a sur­prise gala host­ed and or­gan­ised by Lynette "The Priest­ess" Rocke and Don Clarke of At­lanta, Geor­gia.

In­vaders crowned champs

The event drew a large crowd of friends and sup­port­ers who were anx­ious to meet and shake hands with this mu­si­cal ge­nius, in­clud­ing Bar­net "Preach­er" Hen­ry, still re­mem­bered for his 1994 Road March Jump and Wave.

Plen­ty of good, in­dige­nous foods and bev­er­ages were served. Most of the mu­sic played was from a col­lec­tion of Greenidge's great­est hits. A plaque was pre­sent­ed to Greenidge on be­half of The Tri­ni Posse with the in­scrip­tion "The Sweet­est Hands on Pan."

�2 CAL In­vaders was crowned Over­all Cham­pi­on of the 14th edi­tion of the com­PAN­ions Steel­band Sports and Fam­i­ly Day held on May 30, at Ed­die Hart Grounds, Tacarigua. Fif­teen steel­bands par­tic­i­pat­ed in the event. N&M Trinidad All Stars spon­sored the chal­lenge tro­phy, ded­i­cat­ed in ho­n­our of Neville Jules, for the over­all cham­pi­on, de­cid­ed af­ter more than a month of com­pe­ti­tion in dif­fer­ent sport­ing dis­ci­plines in pa­n­yards across the coun­try.

The fun day was joint­ly co-or­di­nat­ed by Julie Williams of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus and N&M Trinidad All Stars' Denise Her­nan­dez, with a T&T Fire Ser­vices crew co-or­di­nat­ing the ac­tu­al events. Al­so as­sist­ing were En­sphere Events; DJ Dy­nam­ic Sounds; and Giselle West­field who filled in for Williams who was in Zim­bab­we, Africa.

Pan Jam­mers of San­ta Cruz, made up of young peo­ple from the age of six, pro­vid­ed a fab­u­lous range of mu­sic. Tu­na­puna's Fas­ci­na­tors Pan Sym­pho­ny's di­verse reper­toire kept guests and par­tic­i­pants in a live­ly mood.

Wit­co Des­per­a­does won the Fun Past Pa­rade, which was themed A Trib­ute to the Mighty Spar­row. Run­ners-up were Phase II Pan Groove and Rene­gades, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists and In­vaders, re­spec­tive­ly.

In the tug-o-war event In­vaders beat Fas­ci­na­tors Pan Sym­pho­ny in the fi­nal while the ath­let­ic mem­bers Phase II won the aer­o­bics burnout com­pe­ti­tion. In­vaders al­so won the Cham­pi­on of the Day award, ahead of Fas­ci­na­tors, Rene­gades and Des­per­a­does, re­spec­tive­ly.

??