A little bit of Trinidad–well, actually, quite a large bit of Trinidad and several other Caribbean islands–crammed itself into a nightclub in central London last Friday for a rammed, rowdy, rag-waving night of soca, as Kes performed to a delirious mob at the famous Scala nightclub in Kings Cross.
The heat inside the venue was a welcome relief for the thousand-plus soca fans who had queued for well over an hour in the freezing cold of a March night in London. TS Eliot once wrote that April is the cruellest month. I've never quite known the meaning of that, but March is the worst by far. January passes quickly, February has the romance of Valentine's Day. March just drags winter on and on, well beyond its sell-by date, encroaching upon the spring that tries to emerge, beats it back shivering and oppressed.
Earlier that week, warm sunshine had raised England's hopes. The kind of sun to make rabbits hop and spring lambs gambol. But outside the archaic venue the bitterly cold wind whipped around the legs of the brave girls in pum pum shirts and dresses, in the queue that snaked menacingly halfway up the Grays Inn Road almost to the Ear, Nose and Throat hospital and didn't appear to be moving at all.
There were some gambolling lambs in the line, but also packs of hungry, not to mention thirsty, wolves. The vibe was bizarre.
Joining the end of the queue we heard Trini voices–civilised, well-bred–but we quickly grew impatient with the non-moving line and wandered forward to inspect the shorter "VIP and birthday" line.
Two hapless fellows guarding the VIP line were struggling to contain the waves of chancers swigging rum and claiming it was their birthdays.
"Let she in, let she in!" barked one man at the ill-equipped bouncers.
Suddenly a Convent accent rang out in the crisp London night. We had been recognised and rescued. God bless St Joseph's Convent, Port-of-Spain. Sapentia et Sciencia. That bastion of all that is good and just. Quickly we were smuggled into the warm throng of body heat.
The fumes of rum and marijuana smoke still circled–infusing the usual London smells of kebabs, McDonalds and diesel with something more tropical. Some of the faces in the crowd were downright thuggish.
"This is not a usual Kes crowd," our Convent saviours guffawed. "This is an Iwer crowd!" We kept our hands firmly in our pockets as hooded fellas with bad intentions lurked in the swaying and heaving queue. The safety barrier separating us from the VIP was knocked over repeatedly. The Convent girls were being jammed on, even before the first strains of soca could be heard from within. They had travelled up from Canterbury in Kent: the garden of England.
"I couldn't miss Kes, not after missing Carnival," they said, beaming.
Next to them a young man told us he'd travelled down from Grimsby–a fishing port with a clue in its name, located on the north east coast, four hours, 177 miles away.
"I like soca too bad yes," he grinned.
Seeing and hearing so many Trinis concentrated in this one spot was surreal, heartwarming and confusing. Where are they all on a normal day? I wondered. It made me think that more frequent events like this are needed to bring the ex-pat Trinis in Britain together. I don't get the sense that there's a cohesive community who know each other like they do back home.
Near the entrance a car backed up to the curb and two men emerged, popped the trunk and started selling roti from out the back.
"We from Couva so you know this roti good," they said, smiling.
A rather baleful vendor selling whistles and flags didn't appear to be doing a roaring trade–but once we were inside there were flags from Grenada, St Lucia, Antigua, Jamaica, Dominica, Montserrat and Aruba.
And once inside, the atmosphere changed. The rowdiness turned to pure joy as the DJ bashed out soca classics from Alison Hinds, Machel Montano, Biggy Irie, Blaxx, Patrice, Destra et al.
At around 2.30 am, Kes hit the stage with an enormous grin and performed a brilliant crowd-pleasing set including reggae and dancehall freestyles alongside his soca hits.
Despite the over-zealous security operation that had kept people waiting in the cold, the venue was clearly oversold with no room to move on the dance floor or the balconies.
It was good to see a well-rehearsed Kes enjoying himself, looking as comfortable as if he was playing an all-inclusive fete back home. We departed at 4 am with the sound of Party Done ringing in our ears, looking forward to the next one. We bought a roti from the Couva men but, like the weather, it was cold so we waited until home to put it in the oven. In London you can never fully replicate the heat of Trinidad, but Kes certainly stoked the fires.