Pa­trons in the So­cadrome at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Port-of-Spain were yes­ter­day treat­ed to al­most an en­tire Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence on one stage.

For the first time since its in­cep­tion, the Scoad­rome was part of the route tak­en by rev­ellers as they pa­rad­ed through the na­tion’s cap­i­tal on Car­ni­val Tues­day. First to cross the stage yes­ter­day morn­ing was Harts, fol­lowed by Bliss, Pure, Yu­ma and Tribe, who took the stage head­ing in­to the af­ter­noon.

Tribe’s “palance” across the stage was led by Machel Mon­tano and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, who sang their Road March con­tender Famalay, fol­lowed by Kees Di­ef­fen­thel­lar who per­formed his con­tender Sa­van­nah Grass.

Af­ter the first sal­vo of bands, Nailah Black­man and Farmer Nap­py had pa­trons jump­ing out of their seats as they per­formed their biggest hits, in­clud­ing this year’s favourites such as Black­man’s Iron Love and Nap­py’s Hookin’ Meh.

David Rud­der and Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion’s (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, who was ac­com­pa­nied by Col­in Lu­cas, al­so per­formed their nos­tal­gic hits, giv­ing the crowd a tour through time with so­ca and ca­lyp­so.

As the artistes belt­ed out their lyrics, pa­trons were al­so treat­ed to some “ole mas,” as rev­ellers donned cos­tumes of clas­si­cal char­ac­ters such as Ba­by Dolls, Bats, Dame Lor­raines and oth­ers.

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the mu­si­cal per­for­mances, pa­trons were giv­en a taste of steel­pan as the Star­lift Ju­nior Steel Or­ches­tra took the stage to ren­der their ver­sion of this year’s so­ca hits, in­clud­ing Iron love.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event, So­cadrome or­gan­is­er Dean Ackin told Guardian Me­dia: “The So­cadrome is al­so a show. You could come here and you can see not on­ly mas and dif­fer­ent types of mas but al­so steel­pan and kings, queens, tra­di­tion­al mas. I’m re­al­ly hap­py to see that it’s (So­cadrome) evolv­ing and it’s evolv­ing in a pos­i­tive way.” —Rishard Khan