In­nis Fran­cis

As far as the cal­en­dar of events is con­cerned, the Car­ni­val 2020 sea­son is al­ready in full swing. With at least a dozen mas bands al­ready launched and Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions and the T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA) launch­ing an­oth­er 25 in No­vem­ber, Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val kept the mo­men­tum go­ing last Sun­day with a pre­lude to its C2K20 pre­sen­ta­tion—Street Jam—aboard the Liq­uid Lounge ves­sel.

A pre­miere mas band from the South, with decades of his­to­ry be­hind it, Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val host­ed the boat ride as a lead up to its big launch on Oc­to­ber 5, aboard the boat at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do.

Band­leader Aaron Kalicha­ran an­nounced next year’s theme is in keep­ing with the ti­tle, repli­cat­ing the unique par­ty cul­ture and trends of T&T from days of yore.

The Oc­to­ber 5 launch is sched­uled for the Twin Wall Com­pound, La Ro­maine, and Kalicha­ran is op­ti­mistic that their sev­en-sec­tion pre­sen­ta­tion will con­tin­ue to sat­is­fy their fol­low­ers.

De­spite this year’s judg­ing point fi­as­co that forced Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val to take the band away from the main judg­ing area at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, Kalicha­ran said talks with the band­lead­ers’ as­so­ci­a­tion is nec­es­sary and is card­ed for No­vem­ber. It is there, Kalicha­ran said he is hop­ing to trash out all dif­fer­ences and make mas in San Fer­nan­do en­joy­able again.

“We in­tend on keep­ing all ac­tiv­i­ties alive. As we ex­pand­ed our com­mit­tee, we have tak­en a more pro­duc­tive ap­proach for the de­mo­graph­ic of our fol­low­ers. The boat ride was sim­ply a pre-pump.Right now the an­nounce­ment of the (na­tion­al) bud­get is pri­or­i­ty, so we will give that the re­spect. Af­ter which we will have a meet­ing and dis­cuss the plans for Car­ni­val 2020 in San Fer­nan­do.”

This year, Kalicha­ran’s Ad­dic­tive pre­sen­ta­tion did not cross the judg­ing point at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, and the band­leader cit­ed “noise pol­lu­tion, safe­ty for rev­ellers and trail­er trucks in­ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty” as the main rea­sons for not be­ing go­ing to the judg­ing point.

Kalicha­ran said pa­trons can ex­pect, “the blocko vibes, fete, the melee and bac­cha­nal as­so­ci­at­ed with it. How par­ty­ing used to be, go­ing to a fete in the vil­lage, to­geth­er­ness and the sweet­ness of the mu­sic, but in a safe en­vi­ron­ment.”

He said for now his com­mit­tee is con­tin­u­ing work on the cos­tumes for the pro­duc­tion. They are mov­ing with the changes of time and the launch will be ear­li­er than usu­al, ex­pect­ed to be­gin at 6 pm to 1 am.

Tick­ets can be ac­quired at the band’s Har­ris Street mas camp lo­ca­tion.