DAVID CUFFY

Sug­ar Aloes (Michael Os­ouna) was re­peat­ed­ly en­cored for his com­po­si­tion ti­tled My Re­sponse at the pre­mier of Ca­lyp­so Re­vue's 50th sea­son at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, last Fri­day night.Com­posed in re­sponse to se­vere crit­i­cism from some mem­bers of the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty for his con­tro­ver­sial ap­pear­ance on stage to ser­e­nade the Prime Min­is­ter at the sec­ond an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of the PP Gov­ern­ment, the clev­er­ly-craft­ed song seem­ing­ly won the hearts of ca­lyp­so lovers in the large au­di­ence.

"Is just pay Aloes get pay to do a wuk," he sang in the dit­ty which re­called the many com­po­si­tions he sang in de­fence of the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. The line "I still love mih Patrick Man­ning" caused fren­zied shrieks from some, while oth­ers stood and cheered when he in­toned "This stage is mine, I ent cross no floor." His oth­er se­lec­tion Not De Land was a mu­si­cal lament on the state of the coun­try. "Is not the land I used to know, Par­lia­ment is a com­plete com­e­dy show," he sang.

May­or of Ari­ma Ghas­san Youseph re­ceived some neg­a­tive feed­back for a long-wind­ed ad­dress to open the pro­gramme in which he ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions on the tent's mile­stone achieve­ment.Maze, the first singer on the 24-mem­ber cast, of­fered the ap­pro­pri­ate­ly-ti­tled se­lec­tion Cel­e­bra­tion in which he con­tend­ed it was "cel­e­bra­tion time, 50 years and we do­ing fine."

As the pro­gramme un­fold­ed, one be­came aware of the scin­til­lat­ing mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment pro­vid­ed by the Re­vue Or­ches­tra, led by John Wal­cott. A task eas­i­ly ac­com­plished as most of the ca­lyp­soes' con­struct at­tempt­ed to use the three build­ing blocks of mu­sic–melody, har­mo­ny and rhythm.

Young Alana Sinette was among the stand­out singers, do­ing a se­lec­tion ti­tled No Moral Au­thor­i­ty. Oth­ers in­clud­ed Skatie–Prophet With­out Ho­n­our; De­von Seale–Game Show Pol­i­tics; Michelle Hen­ry–Blind Man's Bluff; Emor­tel–Ah Fraid; M'ba–Jhar­ray; Nin­ja–Ah Buy­ing; and a very clever dou­ble en­ten­dre by Wit­ty ti­tled Go­ing For Crown.

Xpos­er for­got his lines in Fresh Comess, leav­ing the work in­com­plete, and Sexy Susie won the fe­males over singing Noth­ing Down Dey. Flashy Dan–Ah Fight­ing Crime; Te­niel Coop­er–Qual­i­ty In­vest­ment; An­dre Williams–Bad Man; and Mar­lon Ed­wards–Blind Man's Hope, al­so re­ceived sin­cere ap­pre­ci­a­tion for their con­tri­bu­tions.

Starr George opened af­ter the in­ter­val pre­sent­ing his an­nu­al Kitch­en­er trib­ute, choos­ing the pop­u­lar Sug­ar Bum Bum as this year's of­fer­ing. Chalk­dust dis­played his con­sid­er­able com­pos­ing skills in two se­lec­tions–Prodi­gal Son and Vir­ginia's Alzhimer, while Pink Pan­ther's Trav­el Woes and Bal­ly's Claus­es earned gen­uine call-backs. Nicole Greaves in­tro­duced the par­ty el­e­ment with Ham­mer Time, the se­lec­tion Des­per­a­does will show­case for Panora­ma, and was fol­lowed by Baron do­ing Pan Tuner and We Hav­ing A Par­ty.

When I left the venue at ten min­utes af­ter mid­night, still to come and show­case their wares were Scrunter and Im­pulse.Show host du­ties were shared by Spran­galang and CG.