Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Pa­trons of this year’s Fete with the Saints had lit­tle time to rest, as a se­ries of high-en­er­gy per­for­mances kept them on their feet and groov­ing in­to the ear­ly hours of Sun­day morn­ing.

Fete with the Saints is St Mary’s Col­lege’s an­nu­al all-in­clu­sive Car­ni­val fete, now in its 23rd year, and is con­sid­ered by some to be one of T&T’s more up­scale Car­ni­val events, com­bin­ing live­ly per­for­mances from top so­ca acts with the el­e­gance of a gala event at the school’s Ser­pen­tine Road, St Clair, sports grounds.

And while some events grad­u­al­ly build the at­mos­phere of the evening from a re­laxed, laid-back rhythm to a rau­cous tem­po at its peak, Sat­ur­day’s fete be­gan on a high note with open­ing act Free­town Col­lec­tive.

The so­ca col­lec­tive, which con­sists of vo­cal­ist Muham­mad Muwak­il—him­self a past pupil of the col­lege—at­tract­ed the first batch of pa­trons from the bar, food tents and pho­to booths to the stage front, set­ting the pace for the rest of the evening as spec­ta­tors sang along to the earthy sounds of Kaya, Take Me Home and Feel the Love.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Muwak­il de­scribed his re­turn to his al­ma mater as a “full-cir­cle mo­ment” as he re­flect­ed on his for­ma­tive years.

“I walked in­to the venue to a flood of mem­o­ries from play­ing foot­ball there and won­der­ing what kind of life I’d have when I grew up.

“I nev­er imag­ined this one. Ab­solute­ly grate­ful for the years that have passed.”

By the end of their per­for­mance, the crowd grew even larg­er, but was not left idle as an­oth­er CIC alum, Kees Diefen­thaller, and his band main­tained the event’s mo­men­tum, bring­ing on fel­low artistes Ben­jai and mu­si­cal duo Full Blown dur­ing his hour-long per­for­mance, paus­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly to in­ter­act with fans in the crowd.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter their per­for­mance, the Good Spir­its hit­mak­ers said they en­joyed good chem­istry with Kes’ live band in de­liv­er­ing a qual­i­ty, in­ter­ac­tive per­for­mance for pa­trons.

“This is our sec­ond year in a row per­form­ing with Kes’ band. They un­der­stand us, they know when we want to drop it (the mu­sic) low to hear the crowd sing —all those kinds of things—so it felt like home,” Ko­ry Hart, one half of the duo, said.

Mean­while, his broth­er Kevon Hart said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly grate­ful for the pos­i­tive re­sponse to their song, Re­spect­ful­ly Yours, which at­tract­ed cheers from pa­trons as the band be­gan to play the in­stru­men­tal to the tune.

“It’s a nice, packed crowd and every­body was ready to par­ty. I’m so thank­ful that every­body liked the song, so that was great.”

The broth­ers al­so urged the pub­lic to be re­spon­si­ble and care­ful in all of their ac­tiv­i­ties for Car­ni­val 2026, not­ing that while the cel­e­bra­tions were wel­come, safe­ty should al­ways be a pri­or­i­ty.

The crowd’s en­er­gy con­tin­ued to swell with the ar­rival of so­ca’s pow­er cou­ple, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Fay-Ann Lyons, who stirred pa­trons in­to a fren­zy with Car­ni­val Con­tract, Car­ry It and this year’s sin­gle Road­man.

Sport­ing his mil­i­tary-style black beret and waist­coat, Bun­ji sin­gled out a por­tion of the crowd and promised to get them to per­form more an­tics.

The hus­band-and-wife duo took turns de­liv­er­ing in­di­vid­ual hits be­fore even­tu­al­ly re­turn­ing to share the stage, with Bun­ji’s sig­na­ture freestyle clos­ing their per­for­mance.

Af­ter a brief in­ter­mis­sion, pa­trons re­turned to the bars and pho­to booths to so­cialise.

This lull was short-lived, as by mid­night the en­er­gy re­turned with the ar­rival of so­ca star Machel Mon­tano, who be­gan his 80-minute per­for­mance with this year’s sin­gle En­core.

Clad in a teal blaz­er and sup­port­ed by his team of Monk Dancers in match­ing out­fits, Mon­tano pushed the crowd’s en­er­gy even high­er as he dipped fur­ther in­to his mu­si­cal cat­a­logue, re­turn­ing to his X-Tatik era of so­ca.

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the marathon per­for­mance, Machel re­flect­ed on the lyrics of En­core and the breadth of his en­ter­tain­ment ca­reer, say­ing the song held spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for him.

“There are so many songs and joy we want to spread, but we see the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what ‘could be’ for so­ca mu­sic and we want to go be­yond, so every­thing be­fore was a dress re­hearsal—the re­al thing about to start.

“These lyrics mean every­thing to us. The re­al thing is about to start, and ‘En­core’ is about that—you’re on­ly as good as your last per­for­mance. That per­for­mance … if I have no oth­er, I’m sat­is­fied with that one.”

Per­for­mances weren’t lim­it­ed to the stage, as moko jumbies, fire-breathers, cy­borgs and blue dev­ils walked among the crowd, min­gling with pa­trons for pho­tos and even danc­ing, in­clud­ing pa­trons as part of the spec­ta­cle.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, co-chair of the fete com­mit­tee, Rober­to Ramirez, said that while there were some ini­tial chal­lenges due to flood­ing of the venue from heavy rain last week, he cred­it­ed the suc­cess of the event to the abil­i­ty of co­or­di­na­tors to or­gan­ise and adapt to the changes.