Leah So­rias

Ja­son Williams (JW) and Blaze's song Palance is lead­ing the way for Road March 2010. So said so­ca fans yes­ter­day. The song, writ­ten and pro­duced by Ker­nel Roberts, con­tin­ues to flood the air­waves since its re­lease late last year. It's even the pop­u­lar choice for mo­bile ring­tones. "It's in­fec­tious," said City Styles store clerk Vidya Har­ri­dass. Oth­ers in the store agreed. "Every­where you turn you're hear­ing Palance, it stick in my head since morn­ing," a cus­tomer said. On Fred­er­ick Street in Port-of-Spain 80 per cent of the peo­ple in­ter­viewed said Palance was their top pick for Road March. "The beat, I like the beat, I could see my­self jump­ing up to that all day Tues­day," said Shurlana Hec­tor, a pro­gramme di­rec­tor.

So con­fi­dent she was that the song will win that she placed a $200 bet with oth­ers in her of­fice.

"A lot of us chose Palance but some think Blaxx's Zom­bie will win. I know I have $200 to col­lect," she said jok­ing­ly. How­ev­er, her friend, Adri­an, felt Palance was over­played on the ra­dio sta­tions and as a re­sult would be­come "stale" be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day. "It's like that song Mr Vibes had a few years ago, Ting for De Road. Every­body like it, but it came out too ear­ly and it got stale," he said. "It's my choice for Road March too, but they (JW and Blaze) have to find a way to tone it down un­til Car­ni­val so it would be fresh by that time," he added. Stand­ing chat­ting in front of a cloth­ing store on Fred­er­ick Street, a group of four friends all chimed "Palance" when asked of their choice for Road March. "I haven't re­al­ly heard any­thing else. Fay-Ann sounds good but I got hooked on Palance," one said. Low­er down the street, sec­ond-year uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents Re­ne­sha Singh and Asha Karim­bo­cas both agreed that Palance could win the cov­et­ed ti­tle.

"Ja­son and Blaze came good this year. I saw them in Tribe (fete) and they were great," Karim­bo­cas said. Two oth­er per­sons in­ter­viewed chose Blaxx's Zom­bie and Patch's Pipe for Road March. Vet­er­an mas­man Bri­an Mc­Far­lane said Bun­ji Gar­lin's Brave was his pick for the ti­tle. "It's a nice piece of mu­sic and he calls my name in the song, too," he said laugh­ing. Mean­while, last's year's Road March win­ner Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez said she would not pre­dict this year's win­ner as it was up to the peo­ple to make that de­ci­sion. She vowed, though, to put her best foot for­ward for the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion. "Ja­son and Blaze have a great song this year but So­ca Monarch has noth­ing to do with how big you or you song are. Pre­sen­ta­tion and per­for­mance has to speak for it­self," she said. "Yes they have a good song but hav­ing been in the com­pe­ti­tion for years with Bun­ji Gar­lin and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, I don't un­der­es­ti­mate any­one," she added.

Lyons-Al­varez has three hits for this Car­ni­val sea­son–True Lies, Iron and Steel (both Pow­er So­ca) as well as Start Win­ing (Groovy). She copped first prize in last year's Pow­er So­ca Monarch and Groovy So­ca Monarch while eight months preg­nant.