Su­per Blue dom­i­nates Car­ni­val 2013

There was no doubt Austin "Su­perBlue" Lyons' Fan­tas­tic Fri­day was the of­fi­cial choice of all the bands at Adam Smith Square, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. From as ear­ly as 11 am, every band rang out the vet­er­an's come­back hit as they crossed the judg­ing point, and mas­quer­aders chant­ed, "Wa­ter and pow­der" as they jumped along the route.

Al­though spec­ta­tors were few in the stands, the song seemed to al­so be a favourite of theirs and tourists who lined the square. They were of­ten seen singing along, word for word, to the song.There was no doubt Su­perBlue left Machel Mon­tano's Float–Fan­tas­tic Fri­day's main con­tender–play­ing catch-up.

The bands seen at this judg­ing point yes­ter­day in­clud­ed An­tho­ny Stafford's Eu­pho­ria Sis­ter Isle and Lega­cy's Trinidad to Rio, de­signed by Michael "Big Mike" An­toine and Juli­et de la Bastide. They pre­sent­ed 15 sec­tions. Al­so chip­ping along the route was Ron­nie and Caro's Mys­tery of the Cas­cadu­ra.

Vet­er­an chil­dren's de­sign­er Ros­alind Gabriel al­so proud­ly pre­sent­ed her win­ning band Lost in Par­adise–the on­ly chil­dren's band seen at the square yes­ter­day. Oth­er adult bands in­clud­ed Veni and Friends, Just Friends, whose pro­duc­tion was ti­tled Broad­way, God­frey Enile's Kitch–a trib­ute to ca­lyp­son­ian Ald­wyn "Lord Kitch­en­er" Roberts–and K2K Al­liance and Part­ners' The Hu­man Race.

Is­land Peo­ple touched on the is­sue of hu­man rights, giv­ing names like ho­n­our, re­spect, hu­mil­i­ty, de­vo­tion and love, to sec­tions in the band. The band com­prised ten sec­tions.Al­so tak­ing time out to ad­dress so­cial ills in the mid­dle of the jump-up was the band Wee In­ter­na­tion­al. Play­ing Pur­ple Mon­day, it stat­ed the pro­ceeds of yes­ter­day went to­wards fight­ing vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren.

Again ho­n­our­ing the pu­ri­ty of the land, as he did in his 2012 pre­sen­ta­tion, vet­er­an mas­man Bri­an Mac Far­lane dis­played the dif­fer­ent lev­els of joy with his 2013 pre­sen­ta­tion Joy: The Fi­nale. Clad in glow­ing white, the mas­quer­aders of Joy ex­plod­ed in­to the square dis­play­ing the joy of her­itage, the joy of the moon, the joy of the rain­bow, the joy of the wind and ocean, among oth­ers.

Last Fri­day at the King of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion, Mac Far­lane's King Ger­ard Weekes, who por­trayed Al To Yu­jo No Yoroko­bi (The Joy of Love and Friend­ship), tied for first place with Tri­ni Rev­ellers' Moko In Flames dis­played by Ted Eu­stace, son of mas leg­end Ted­der Eu­stace, a three-time win­ner. How­ev­er, Weekes did not por­tray his cos­tume yes­ter­day.