SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD &

KALAIN HO­SEIN

Soa­ka Till Sun­rise was de­scribed by many as the ul­ti­mate end to WOW Events three-day fes­ti­val, the Soa­ka Mu­sic and Arts Fes­ti­val.

With wa­ter can­nons, co­pi­ous amounts of paint and pow­der, pa­trons wel­comed the sun­rise drenched in colour as so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano took to the stage, brought on by a stun­ning fire­works dis­play.

Mon­tano’s al­most hour-long per­for­mance saw Iw­er George and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous join­ing him for their 2020 col­lab­o­ra­tion, Conch Shell.

The song has been slow­ly gain­ing mo­men­tum and af­ter the trio’s pow­er-packed per­for­mance, many fes­ti­val-go­ers com­ment­ed that the song could be a strong con­tender for Road March 2020.

If it does take the ti­tle, it will be Mon­tano’s 11th road march win and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous’ sec­ond, af­ter his 2019 col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mon­tano and Bun­ji Gar­lin, Famalay.

The event be­gan at 3 am and be­fore the gates opened, pa­trons were al­ready lined up at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Gar­lin was the first artiste to take the Soa­ka stage around 4 am and his per­for­mance woke fes­ti­val-go­ers up.

Af­ter Mon­tano’s per­for­mance, Aaron St Louis (Voice) took to the stage around 7.30 am. It didn’t take long for be­fore Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller joined him and the two belt­ed out their col­lab­o­ra­tion, Dear Pro­mot­er- which sent the crowd in­to a fren­zy.

Artistes Lyrikal and Prob­lem Child al­so per­formed on the Soa­ka stage.

On Fri­day night, when the fes­ti­val opened at the Sa­van­nah, some pa­trons were not sure what to ex­pect.

When you hear the ti­tle “Arts and Mu­sic Fes­ti­val” in Trinidad and To­ba­go, it usu­al­ly goes one of two ways – a pre­dom­i­nant­ly, art­sy show, with a few mu­si­cal per­for­mances or an all-out fete.

Iron Park, the in­au­gur­al event of the Soa­ka Arts and Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, was nei­ther. WOW Events, the or­gan­is­er for Soa­ka, man­aged to con­struct the per­fect blend of a pa­n­yard, a rhythm sec­tion, and a fete but all held to the stan­dards of what is typ­i­cal­ly seen in in­ter­na­tion­al mu­sic fes­ti­vals.

Held in Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, in the cen­tre of Port-of-Spain, it cer­tain­ly didn’t feel like it.

LED lights were strung up on trees, tents, and signs, with LED flower crowns rest­ing on half the pa­trons’ heads. It pre­sent­ed the ide­al pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ties for the Gen Z and mil­len­ni­al crowds. If those lights weren’t enough, each per­son was giv­en a reusable cup (Go Green!) with a glow-in-the-dark base and glow stick neck­laces.

Sev­er­al food trucks, with food rea­son­ably priced, and drink sta­tions were al­so spread across the venue.

Spon­sors, such as Jose Cuer­vo and White Oak, were al­so present, giv­ing out sought af­ter pro­mo­tion­al items.

It al­so wasn’t over­crowd­ed like a typ­i­cal Car­ni­val event ei­ther, which is some­thing I think most ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

Steel band per­for­mances by BP Rene­gades, Trinidad All Stars, Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion, Des­per­a­dos, and Point Fortin Jam­mers were in­ter­ject­ed by so­ca hits of 2019 and 2020 from head­line DJ’s such as DJ Pri­vate Ryan, Travis World, and Ali­cia the Duchess.

As per usu­al, as the night went on, the crowds in­creased but as I moved through the fes­ti­val grounds, speak­ing to pa­trons, most peo­ple who at­tend­ed the event didn’t re­al­ly know what to ex­pect. Most who did show up on­ly at­tend­ed be­cause Iron Park was in­clud­ed in the price for their RFID bands, main­ly pur­chased for the main event on Sun­day, Soa­ka Till Sun­rise.

How­ev­er, the feed­back was re­sound­ing­ly pos­i­tive. Over­all, it seemed like Iron Park was the much need­ed re­laxed at­mos­phere need­ed be­fore fetes ramped up this week­end.

The younger crowd in Trinidad and To­ba­go are some­times seen as “band­wag­o­nists” when it comes to steel­pan.

We, me in­clud­ed, ap­pre­ci­ate from a dis­tance, but nev­er ac­tu­al­ly show up to Panora­ma or oth­er steel pan events.

How­ev­er, Iron Park suc­cess­ful­ly made steel­pan the fo­cal point of a well-at­tend­ed mu­sic fes­ti­val while main­tain­ing the vibe that we see with a fete, rein­vig­o­rat­ing in­ter­est and en­joy­ment in peo­ple that would have seen pan as an af­ter­thought.