Geisha Kow­lessar

A ju­bi­lant Ron­nie McIn­tosh could hard­ly con­tain his ex­cite­ment as it was an­oth­er thrilling mo­ment when he and his wife Car­o­line, copped a hat-trick in the Down­town Band of the Year ti­tle with their 2016 pre­sen­ta­tion Tears Of...

While this was the third such win for the hus­band and wife team it was, how­ev­er, the first time they copped the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion's (NCC) Band of The Year Com­pe­ti­tion in the se­nior cat­e­go­ry.

Last year, the band won the Down­town Pa­rade of the Bands ti­tle with their of­fer­ing Ah Come Back Home.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, McIn­tosh said his wife was al­so blown away by the news as she "could not stop scream­ing down the house.

"It is such a tremen­dous feel­ing. We re­al­ly worked hard not on­ly to bring out the best mas band but as a must we en­sure our mas­quer­aders have a great all round ex­pe­ri­ence... from the mu­sic, food... the whole works," McIn­tosh said.

On what he be­lieved al­so pushed him over the edge to beat out the oth­er con­tenders the vet­er­an band­leader said his cos­tumes were a mix­ture of biki­ni and beads and full fab­ric pieces.

"Our band has sex­i­ness but we al­so sup­ply full cov­er­age. We can­not turn a blind eye to the biki­ni and beads be­cause that is what peo­ple come to the coun­try for.

"We al­so do pre­sen­ta­tions in oth­er parts of the world and biki­ni and beads are what peo­ple want.

"But our band is much more than that be­cause it must be bal­anced. We have cre­ativ­i­ty and we keep the mas alive... in essence we are pre­serv­ing our cul­ture that is Car­ni­val," McIn­tosh added.He said through­out his pre­sen­ta­tions over the years the theme was kept sim­ple.

Say­ing the win was for his "loy­al mas­quer­aders and those re­cent­ly joined," McIn­tosh said his band has grown over the years, adding that was in it­self a bless­ing.

"With­out them we have no band and we have no Car­ni­val. We have to al­ways treat our mas­quer­aders top class so they could go back and spread the word and al­ways bring back more peo­ple," McIn­tosh added.

Plac­ing sec­ond in both venues was Lost Tribe while Tri­ni Rev­ellers came third at the Sa­van­nah.NCC's chair­man Ken­ny de Sil­va said he was pleased with the crowd turnout at both Down­town and Pic­cadil­ly at the Greens.