Renu­ka Singh

Mas­quer­aders and band­lead­ers are ex­pect­ing more con­ges­tion along the pa­rade route to­day as the five big par­ty bands are set to join the tra­di­tion­al pa­rade route lat­er this evening, af­ter parad­ing across their own pri­vate "So­cadrome" stage at the Jean Pierre Com­plex. This ap­pre­hen­sion comes af­ter weeks of de­bate and dis­cus­sion to de­ter­mine the route and, even af­ter then, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har stepped in to quash the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) de­ci­sion to re­verse the route.The ad­vent of the So­cadrome was ex­pect­ed to ease the con­ges­tion for to­day's pa­rade but par­ty band mas­quer­aders have called for a re­turn to the Car­ni­val Mec­ca.

Po­lice, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA) of­fi­cials and on­look­ers agreed that the con­ges­tion was "not as bad" dur­ing yes­ter­day's pro­ces­sion through down­town Port-of-Spain, even though Tribe and Bliss crossed that judg­ing point an hour af­ter the com­pe­ti­tion opened.It was a trick­le of bands that pa­rad­ed be­fore scanty crowds in the down­town stands. The larg­er au­di­ence re­mained along the route watch­ing the bands.Af­ter weeks of de­bate, dis­cus­sions and hic­cups, the ma­jor non-com­pet­ing par­ty bands–Tribe, Yu­ma, Bliss, Harts and Pas­sion–did pa­rade around the tra­di­tion­al route but did not linger as years be­fore and left the route more or less con­ges­tion-free, ex­cept for the usu­al bot­tle­neck just at the en­trance of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah stage.

They will pa­rade to­day at a pri­vate stage built at the Jean Pierre Com­plex and though pre­vi­ous­ly de­nied, have been grant­ed the au­tho­ri­sa­tion to re­turn to the pa­rade route.Af­ter much back and forth, the bands are set to pa­rade on their own stage at the Jean Pierre Com­plex and al­so to re­join the tra­di­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion route which some mas­quer­aders are con­cerned will add to the same con­ges­tion the ex­pe­ri­enced in pre­vi­ous years.

Machel leads Road March

The down­town of­fi­cials re­vealed that an un­of­fi­cial count put Pow­er So­ca win­ner Machel Mon­tano's Min­istry of Road far ahead of the com­pe­ti­tion to claim this year's Road March ti­tle.Bands be­gan cross­ing the down­town stage just af­ter 11 am yes­ter­day and al­most all ac­com­pa­ny­ing mu­sic trucks played Mon­tano's seem­ing­ly run­away hit dubbed MOR.Mon­tano, al­ready a mul­ti­ple road march win­ner, has al­ready tak­en the Pow­er So­ca Monarch crown.