Pe­ter Ray Blood

It's def­i­nite­ly the next best thing to sliced Christ­mas ham. The coun­try's first parang so­ca tent opened its doors last week Wednes­day and what an ex­hil­a­rat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence it's been. So much so I re­turned for two con­sec­u­tive nights to the Christ­mas Car­a­van So­ca Parang Fi­es­ta.

Open week­ly at De Nu Pub in Wood­brook four nights a week (Wednes­day to Sat­ur­day), the ven­ture is the brain child of south­ern­ers Joey Rivers, My­ron Bruce (My­ron B) and Cather­ine Ash­by. Pop­u­lar co­me­di­an Damion Melville, cos­tumed as a hip-hop San­ta Claus, is per­fect in the role of show em­cee. With the pro­gramme opened by jour­nal­ist/ac­tor Keino Swamber, this nov­el project boasts some of the coun­try's top en­ter­tain­ers of the Christ­mas sea­son, in­clud­ing Crazy, Nin­ja, Pos­er, Dee Di­a­mond, Wal­ter (Coro Coro) Tay­lor, Joseph Adams and Skatie. Al­so on board are Eu­nice Pe­ters, The In­cred­i­ble My­ron B, Os­car B, Bri­an Lon­don, Hamidul­lah, Fire­ball, Jo-L, Jer­ry Howai, Er­rol Bai­ley, Rono­man and new­com­er Mr Thin Man. Co­me­di­ans Er­rol Fa­bi­en, George Gon­za­les, Clif­ford Lear­mond and Wen­dell Eti­enne com­plete the line-up. Last week, Denyse Plum­mer, who has a scin­til­lat­ing med­ley of so­ca parang dit­ties on the air­waves, promised to make the oc­ca­sion­al cameo ap­pear­ance.

Em­bell­ish­ing the qual­i­ty at the tent is a full-strength band, un­der the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion of gui­tarist Joey Rivers, plus a trio of com­pe­tent fe­male vo­cal­ists do­ing back-up. A must-see at the tent is Mr Thin Man, whose in­fec­tious Put Down de Gun wins no few­er than three en­cores per night. His song, which was ac­tu­al­ly re­leased last Christ­mas and which he claims no ra­dio sta­tion plays, car­ries a strong mes­sage to the ban­dits and gun­men.

On open­ing night, the show was graced by the pres­ence of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) pres­i­dent Er­ic Tay­lor (Pink Pan­ther) and a num­ber of dig­ni­taries. Tent man­ag­er Bruce said the rov­ing car­a­van would run for six weeks, ini­tial­ly based at De Nu Pub but go­ing to com­mu­ni­ties na­tion­wide, in­clud­ing Ari­ma, Pa­lo Seco, Mar­aval, Cou­va, St Mary's Vil­lage, Point Fortin and San Fer­nan­do. The first four nights at the tent have at­tract­ed sold-out au­di­ences, and show­times are 7.30 pm on Wednes­days and Thurs­days, and 6 pm on Fri­days and Sat­ur­days.