It’s tak­en all of 21 years for Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus to re-en­ter as Na­tion­al Panora­ma large band cham­pi­ons, but yes­ter­day’s vic­to­ry reg­is­tered the band’s fifth win in the com­pe­ti­tion to de­cide the great­est steel­band “on Earth.”

The of­fi­cial judges and the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the crowd at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing were cer­tain that the St Au­gus­tine-based band, play­ing the pop­u­lar Too Own Way by Aaron “Voice” St Louis had tri­umphed over last year’s cham­pi­ons BP Rene­gades.

In the end, the band amassed 288 points, which was just three points bet­ter than Rene­gades with their in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Machel Mon­tano’s Bet Meh.

It was a most sat­is­fy­ing vic­to­ry for Ex­o­dus, in the process pre­vent­ing Rene­gades, the 2023 and 2022 cham­pi­ons, from run­ning away with the ti­tle for a third con­sec­u­tive year.

But notwith­stand­ing the brag­ging rights and good-na­tured com­pet­i­tive pi­cong which will be shared be­tween the sup­port­ers of the first and sec­ond-placed win­ners in the com­pe­ti­tion, and in­deed amongst the die-hard sup­port­ers of all ten fi­nal­ists, the re­sults were very close, a mat­ter of three points be­tween Ex­o­dus (288) and Rene­gades (285) and a mere 11 points be­tween the first and ninth and tenth bands, the his­toric Shell In­vaders and Re­demp­tion Sound – 277 points.

Rel­a­tive­ly young Ex­o­dus arranger Ter­rance “BJ” Mar­celle can cel­e­brate his first vic­to­ry in the na­tion­al Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, ef­fec­tive­ly the steel­band cham­pi­onships of the world, over the more ex­pe­ri­enced and renowned arrangers such as Du­von Stew­art (Rene­gades) and the likes of Leon “Smooth” Ed­wards (Trinidad All Stars), Ardin Her­bert (In­vaders) and the great Len “Boogsie” Sharpe of Phase II Pan Groove.

And like their arranger, Ex­o­dus had with­in its ranks nu­mer­ous young pan­nists, and many fe­males, as has been the trend over the last pe­ri­od, which is a demon­stra­tion that whether clichéd or not, the pan and the bands are in the hands of young peo­ple who con­tin­ue to show their love for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment and the promise to be with it a long dis­tance in­to the fu­ture.

Spe­cial men­tion must be made of Ex­o­dus cap­tain Ju­lia Williams and long­stand­ing man­ag­er Ainsworth Mo­hammed, whose or­gan­i­sa­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the band has demon­strat­ed what makes a steel­band a mu­si­cal­ly ca­pa­ble and self-sus­tain­ing en­ti­ty, of course with the sup­port of Re­pub­lic Bank.

Over­all, it was a great evening and night for steel­pan, for the un­flinch­ing pan fol­low­ers of the steel­bands and their spec­tac­u­lar mu­sic and with guests from abroad. It con­tin­ues to be a trib­ute to the orig­i­na­tors of the pan in­stru­ments, the play­ers and their deft and of­ten daz­zling mu­si­cal arrange­ments.

As to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the show, Pan Trin­ba­go can claim to have done a more than ef­fi­cient job of get­ting the bands on and off the stage with as lit­tle de­lay as can be ex­pect­ed to move 100-plus pans and play­ers on and off the mas­sive stage at the “Big Yard.”

And while there had been a con­cern about re­port­ed­ly large num­bers of spon­sors’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives hav­ing priv­i­leged places in the North Stand, in the process de­priv­ing reg­u­lar pan fans of their ac­cus­tomed po­si­tions, all went well. The fact is that Panora­ma and pan need all the spon­sors and sup­port­ers they can get. Now on to J’Ou­vert, the open­ing stan­za in the street pa­rade, known as the “Great­est Show on Earth.”