Aba A Luke

As it has in pre­vi­ous years, the big band Lega­cy will launch its C2K12 pre­sen­ta­tion just a few months pri­or to the fes­tive sea­son. While oth­er large bands like Tribe, YU­MA, Is­land Peo­ple Mas and Harts Int have shown off their wares al­ready, Lega­cy's pre­sen­ta­tion-Flight-comes amid the cli­mat­ic yearn­ing for the sea­son among mas­quer­aders who rev­el in the de­light of the Car­ni­val build up. For Lega­cy band­leader, Mike "Big Mike" An­toine, the road show has nev­er stopped. In fact, he has just re­turned from the West In­di­an Day pa­rade held in Brook­lyn, New York where the band se­cured its 12th Band of the Year ti­tle in the Labour Day fes­ti­val.

Now, as his at­ten­tion turns to T&T's much tout­ed "Great­est Show on Earth," Big Mike is putting the fi­nal touch­es on his de­signs for the un­veil­ing on Oc­to­ber 16. Club Kat­a­lyst in St Clair will open its doors to pa­trons from 3pm and, ac­cord­ing to An­toine, the some­what ear­ly show­ing is owed to the on­go­ing cur­few on the is­land.

He how­ev­er promised that it would not im­pede the par­ty vibe, as­sur­ing that pa­trons will have more than enough time to par­ty hard and get a taste of what the band has in store for the sea­son ahead. This week, An­toine re­vealed that the con­cept of Flight for his up­com­ing mas pre­sen­ta­tion came to him while on a ride at a theme park abroad. "I was on a ride called Soar­ing. It made you feel like you were a bird fly­ing over the state of Cal­i­for­nia. It was a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence," he said.

With that ex­pe­ri­ence at the top of his mind, the cul­tur­al vi­sion­ary who as tak­en mas around the world from the is­lands-to Eu­rope, Japan and the US-high­light­ed that sec­tions will in­clude Bird of Par­adise, Monarch But­ter­fly, Vic­to­ria's An­gels, Ti­ta­nia and Oberon, Scar­let Macaw and Mag­ic Drag­ons to name a few. He al­so said the de­signs would de­pict birds, but­ter­flies, an­gels, fairies, myth­i­cal crea­tures and any oth­er crea­ture that has the abil­i­ty to soar freely over the earth. With their eyes set on the 2012 Band of the Year prize, An­toine and his team at Lega­cy are work­ing ar­du­ous­ly to pro­vide pa­trons with some­thing spec­tac­u­lar for 2012. In C2K11, the band cap­tured the King of Car­ni­val ti­tle, placed first and sec­ond in the In­di­vid­ual of the Year cat­e­go­ry, reaped the re­ward of Up­town Band of the Year and placed third in the Large Band of the Year cat­e­go­ry.

Thank­ing his mas­quer­aders and all oth­ers who've con­tin­ued to sup­port Lega­cy, An­toine said, in keep­ing with the band's tag line of of­fer­ing the best time ever to pa­trons, his team's fo­cus in 2012 is to pro­vide mas­quer­aders with all the nec­es­sary in­gre­di­ents for a tru­ly mem­o­rable Car­ni­val. "We are con­stant­ly seek­ing new ways to en­hance the Lega­cy Mas ex­pe­ri­ence," not­ed An­toine, adding that peo­ple wish­ing to get fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the launch can call the mas camp at 362-5959 or 622-7466.