Wes­ley Gib­bings

This evening’s Panora­ma Large Con­ven­tion­al Band Fi­nal brings to­geth­er some of the most suc­cess­ful steel­bands in the his­to­ry of the event.

All 11 fi­nal­ists have scored wins at com­pe­ti­tions, in dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories, over the years – some of them with mul­ti­ple vic­to­ries.

In Large Band com­pe­ti­tions, sev­en of the 11 com­peti­tors to­day have won 52 times in the 63 years of Panora­ma. There were no com­pe­ti­tions in 1979 (quashed af­ter the pre­lim­i­nar­ies), and in 2021 and 2022 be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Cur­rent ti­tle hold­ers, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, have won five times and bP Rene­gades Steel Or­ches­tra, which en­ters this evening’s show­down on the ba­sis of a three-point deficit against the St Au­gus­tine champs, have won 12 times.

Like­wise, Des­per­a­does are the hold­ers of a dozen ti­tles them­selves and are play­ing sixth this evening hav­ing placed a strong fourth at the se­mi-fi­nals.

Al­so, nev­er too far be­hind all sea­son, have been 11-time Panora­ma Large Band win­ners, Massy Trinidad All Stars. They play sec­ond af­ter a First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas open­ing per­for­mance.

Su­per­novas have nev­er won in the Large Band cat­e­go­ry but af­ter sweep­ing the Small Bands in 2014 and plac­ing sec­ond in 2015, they moved straight to the Large Band cat­e­go­ry earn­ing sec­ond place at their first at­tempt in 2016.

The ex­pe­ri­ence of Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra is sim­i­lar. Pre­vi­ous­ly known as Skif­fle Bunch, this band won 11 ti­tles in the ‘Pan Around the Neck (Tra­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry) be­fore mov­ing on in 1993 to com­pete in the Con­ven­tion­al Band cat­e­go­ry. They al­so won Pan in the 21st Cen­tu­ry in 2009 and were World Steel­band Fes­ti­val cham­pi­ons in the year 2000.

T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gels Harps have not won at the Panora­ma lev­el but have been zon­al win­ners more than once, and in 1991 won the Pan Ra­ma­jay com­pe­ti­tion.

Katzen­jam­mers, which moved from the Medi­um to Large Band cat­e­go­ry this sea­son, won five times at that lev­el be­fore tran­si­tion­ing to the cur­rent group.

Fifth in this evening’s line­up is sev­en-time Panora­ma win­ners, Phase II Pan Groove which came in tied for ninth at the se­mi-fi­nal and is yet to find its typ­i­cal­ly strong foot­ing. How­ev­er, with arranger Len “Boogsie” Sharpe the knowl­edge­able are un­like­ly to place any bets against this band.

Two-time win­ners, Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars, have al­so ad­vanced ag­gres­sive­ly and tied with Ex­o­dus for sec­ond place at the se­mi-fi­nal. They have been ex­e­cut­ing strong per­for­mances through­out and are ex­pect­ed to fea­ture com­pet­i­tive­ly when this evening’s scores are tal­lied.

Pro­man Star­lift are al­so not to be ig­nored. They have won three times and are among the old­er bands in the con­test with a record that spans close to 70 years – twice the age of arranger, Dan­té Pan­tin.

Pan afi­ciona­dos will con­tend that both his­tor­i­cal record and sea­son­al trends amount to ze­ro on the night of a Panora­ma fi­nal. They how­ev­er add to the lev­el of con­fi­dence go­ing in­to the event.

Some arrangers al­so go in­to this evening’s con­test fol­low­ing com­mand­ing per­for­mances by the bands un­der their di­rec­tion in the Medi­um cat­e­go­ry. The en­counter moved to the QPS fol­low­ing fer­ry dif­fi­cul­ties that elim­i­nat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a To­ba­go en­counter on Sat­ur­day.

Ojay Richards, who led Pan El­ders to Medi­um Band vic­to­ry on Mon­day, is back with Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars.

Du­vone Stew­art – one of the most suc­cess­ful steel­pan arrangers of all time – was at the helm of Courts Laven­tille Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille which put in a sol­id per­for­mance in the Medi­um Band fi­nal and placed sec­ond. Un­der his ba­ton, bP Rene­gades con­tend strong­ly for top ho­n­ours to­day.

Mean­while, Ter­rence “BJ” Mar­celle’s Ari­ma An­gel Harps con­test­ed fierce­ly for fourth place in the Medi­um cat­e­go­ry, but he is in­tent on main­tain­ing Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus’ dom­i­nance in the cat­e­go­ry and re­tain the tro­phy and prize mon­ey.

Ear­li­er this week, the Ex­o­dus man­age­ment arranged a re­view of this sea­son’s arrange­ment in the pres­ence of renowned arrangers Carl “Beaver” Hen­der­son and Le­ston Paul to­geth­er with mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, Pel­ham God­dard and drill mas­ter, Khan Cordice.

An­dre White, who worked with Pam­beri to earn third place among the Medi­um Bands on Mon­day, al­so re­turns to the Big Stage, this time with Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra.

This year’s Panora­ma theme ‘Lega­cy – Ours to Love. Ours to Cher­ish’ was meant to stim­u­late in­ter­est in the con­test’s long his­to­ry. This evening’s pro­ceed­ings pro­vide key in­sights.

Or­der of Ap­pear­ance

1. First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas

2. Massy Trinidad All Stars

3. bP Rene­gades

4. Pro­man Star­lift

5. Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars

6. Phase II Pan Groove

7. T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps

8. Des­per­a­does

9. Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus

10. Katzen­jam­mers

11. Skif­fle