Wes­ley Gib­bings

What­ev­er the weath­er out­look for this evening, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore is in­tent that “no bad breeze (can) blow” in the di­rec­tion of a resched­uled Panora­ma Medi­um Band fi­nal at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

To­day’s event has been dubbed Lega­cy Mon­day. But the com­pe­ti­tion has not been an easy ride for ei­ther the or­gan­is­ers or com­pet­ing bands this year.

Four reg­is­tered bands, in­clud­ing long­stand­ing com­peti­tors Pan-De­mo­ni­um and Pow­er Stars, opt­ed out of this year’s com­pe­ti­tion; and when the re­cent­ly ac­quired MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny fer­ry ves­sel sus­tained hull dam­age on Jan­u­ary 30, the event was prompt­ly moved from To­ba­go to Trinidad and resched­uled to to­day.

“We were up and ready, set to go to To­ba­go on Sun­day,” Ram­sey-Moore said at the draw for play­ing po­si­tions last Tues­day. She has main­tained a con­fi­dent pos­ture through­out, but the acid test comes even be­fore the first com­pet­i­tive notes are sound­ed at 7 pm. to­day.

There has been a mas­sive re­mo­bil­i­sa­tion of trans­porta­tion arrange­ments in view of the change of the time and lo­ca­tion, band ex­pens­es have had to be re­cal­i­brat­ed, it is a school/work­ing day for most pan play­ers, and the move to per­mit free ad­mis­sion will bring its share of lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges at the venue at show­time.

When things get go­ing, though, the fo­cus will be on the 10 bands that made it through a tor­rid semi­fi­nal en­counter at the same venue on Feb­ru­ary 1. There are four past win­ners of the com­pe­ti­tion in the line­up - Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, Pan El­ders Steel Or­ches­tra, Sforza­ta, and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders.

Mul­ti­ple-time win­ners Pan El­ders Steel and Sound Spe­cial­ists have played cat and mouse through the pre­lim­i­nary and semi­fi­nal rounds. Sound Spe­cial­ists had a three-point mar­gin of vic­to­ry over Pan El­ders to oc­cu­py first and sec­ond places at the pre­lim­i­nar­ies. But at last week’s semi­fi­nal, Pan El­ders - six-time win­ners - set a two-point lead over the two-time win­ners, Sound Spe­cial­ists, now un­der the ba­ton of Du­vone Stew­art.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, Pan El­ders holds a record six con­sec­u­tive wins in this cat­e­go­ry be­tween 2014 and 2019 while Stew­art served as arranger. This year, Ojay Richards has tak­en up arranger du­ties for the band for a third con­sec­u­tive time.

Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra, un­der in­struc­tion from An­dre White, mean­while moved up the ranks to place third at the semis, hav­ing held sev­enth place at the pre­lim­i­nar­ies. The San Juan band dis­placed an ac­cel­er­at­ing Ari­ma An­gel Harps in that po­si­tion.

A 22-point dif­fer­ence be­tween semi­fi­nal lead­ers Pan El­ders and cel­lar-placed Curepe Scherzan­do can al­so be de­cep­tive. The qual­i­ty of of­fer­ings by all 10 fi­nal­ists sig­nalled a high lev­el of keen com­pe­ti­tion when con­sid­er­ing that all bands can pro­duce fi­nal night in­no­va­tions.

Ari­ma An­gel Harps, for ex­am­ple, is un­der the com­mand of Ter­rence “BJ” Mar­celle for the sec­ond year run­ning, and he is giv­ing all com­ers a run for their mon­ey for Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus among the Large Bands.

Cou­va Joy­lan­ders - win­ners in 2020 - have al­so proven time and again that they are a mu­si­cal force to be reck­oned with. Ste­fon West re­mains at the helm.

To­ba­go bands, Steel Xplo­sion and Dix­ieland, al­so held steady with im­prove­ments in points earned at the two stages of com­pe­ti­tion. They will, how­ev­er, not en­joy ex­pect­ed home ad­van­tage due to the change in venue, and a Dix­ieland Face­book post on Fri­day spoke of the band be­ing “in the midst of chal­lenges.” They, how­ev­er, inched one place for­ward at the semi­fi­nal with Rais­ing Dust, un­der the ba­ton of Dan­té Pan­tin, and are fourth in line this evening. There is re­port­ed high con­fi­dence in the camp.

Curepe Scherzan­do is the on­ly band of­fer­ing an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of a rel­a­tive­ly re­cent song – Coutain & Tano’s 2025 re­lease of Jam­town. The year 1988 is sig­nif­i­cant, for there is where three bands trav­elled to come up with their songs of choice.

Sforza­ta is play­ing Christo­pher “Tam­bu” Her­bert’s Road March-win­ning This Par­ty is It. Steel Xplo­sion ex­ca­vat­ed the Black Stal­in clas­sic We Can Make it if we Try” and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders re­vis­its Swal­low’s par­ty favourite, Fire in the Back­seat.

Front-run­ners Pan El­ders will play Ma­gi­cian (Com­mand You) by Burn­ing Flames (1999) while Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists goes back to 1984 with Sed­ley “Pen­guin” Joseph’s Soft Man, which won the late bard the Ca­lyp­so Crown that year. Stew­art and his charges are hop­ing the song fol­lows suit this evening. The oth­er com­peti­tors have all sig­nalled an in­ten­tion to prove them wrong.

Or­der of Ap­pear­ance

1. Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille

2. Curepe Scherzan­do Steel Or­ches­tra

3. Ari­ma An­gel Harps Steel Or­ches­tra

4. Dix­ieland Steel Or­ches­tra

5. San­gre Grande Cordettes Steel Or­ches­tra

6. Pan El­ders Steel Or­ches­tra

7. Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra

8. Cou­va Joy­lan­ders Steel Or­ches­tra

9. Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra

10. Steel Xplo­sion Steel Or­ches­tra