SAN­DRA L BLOOD

“Why can’t life be sweet like the scent of this night?” ex­claimed a Ger­man first-time tourist to Trinidad while en­joy­ing the in­au­gur­al Steel­pan and Pow­der Pa­rade (SPP) in Tu­na­puna on No­vem­ber 15.

Host­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go’s East Re­gion (PTER) un­der the pa­tron­age of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC), the event quick­ly es­tab­lished it­self as a vi­brant and pro­gres­sive high­light of Tu­na­puna Week (No­vem­ber 14–22).

Eleven bands par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pa­rade. Lead­ing the mo­bile pro­ces­sion were bp Rene­gades, San­gre Grande Cordettes, Ari­ma An­gel Harps and Massy All Stars, who guid­ed hun­dreds of pow­der-throw­ing, danc­ing and singing par­tic­i­pants from Massy Stores in El Do­ra­do west along the East­ern Main Road to the pa­n­yard of the reign­ing Large Con­ven­tion­al Band Panora­ma cham­pi­ons, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus (Ex­o­dus), for the grand fi­nale.

Ti­tled Pan & Pow­der in Puna, the event was ex­ec­u­tive­ly di­rect­ed by TPRC chair­man Josi­ah Austin, who de­liv­ered the open­ing re­marks. PTER chair­per­son Pre­cious Gilbert-O’Brien al­so ad­dressed the crowd on be­half of Pan Trin­ba­go.

The Steel­pan and Pow­der Pa­rade was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed by the late Jamie Thomas and Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore. First re­alised at T&T Car­ifes­ta 2019 as de­signed by Thomas, the con­cept was lat­er ex­pand­ed, re­tooled and pre­sent­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go.

Since then, it has trav­elled across T&T: north dur­ing Steel­pan Month, south dur­ing San Fer­nan­do City Week, To­ba­go dur­ing To­ba­go Car­ni­val, and now, east dur­ing Tu­na­puna Week.

Oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing bands in­clud­ed Tu­na­puna Tipi­ca, Sim­ple Song, and Aug­ment­ed Groove, who were sta­tion­ary at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, as well as head­line per­form­ers Curepe Scherzan­do Steel­band, Pam­beri and First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas, per­form­ing at the spe­cial­ly trans­formed pa­n­yard. Ex­o­dus closed the event with a spec­tac­u­lar fi­nale.

Every band, whether fa­mil­iar or new, re­ceived en­thu­si­as­tic ap­plause from the mas­sive crowd.

Among the no­table at­ten­dees were Miss Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co 2024 Iman Gar­ner, pageant co­or­di­na­tor Reneisha Adams, Port-of-Spain MP Ka­reem Mar­celle, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Gilbert-O’Brien’s team in­clud­ed Kha­dine Nichols, Jho­van Samuel-Scant­er­bury and Tri­cia Au­gus­tus.

TPRC and Pan Trin­ba­go ex­tend­ed spe­cial thanks to the man­age­ment of Ex­o­dus and every­one who con­tributed to mak­ing the event “spec­tac­u­lar.”

In a state­ment of ap­pre­ci­a­tion, Gilbert-O’Brien said she felt im­mense pride in how the event un­fold­ed and was con­fi­dent that Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Ram­sey-Moore shared her sen­ti­ment.

“All the bands turned up and de­liv­ered be­yond ex­pec­ta­tions. My re­gion’s bands per­formed ex­cep­tion­al­ly. Pan and Pow­der — the brand — is in­deed in safe hands with the East­ern Re­gion.”