“The stage not good again.”

It was the con­sen­sus in down­town Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day as the Pa­rade of the Bands kicked off.

Set to give Neil Iw­er George his sec­ond ma­jor win for the sea­son, the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kees Dif­f­en­thaller ti­tled “Stage Gone Bad” was a clear favourite for Road March 2020 yes­ter­day.

Cross­ing the South Quay judg­ing point be­fore the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee (NCC) judges even showed up was the band ‘Pa­parazzi’ with their 2020 pre­sen­ta­tion ‘Hid­den.’

With 13 sec­tions, the band was in the large band cat­e­go­ry and it set the stage for an af­ter­noon of colour and high en­er­gy for oth­er bands to fol­low.

The Lost Tribe’s 2020 pre­sen­ta­tion ‘Anasi’ al­so crossed the South Quay stage to ‘Stage gone bad.’

It seemed the mas­quer­aders, decked out in their Mon­day wear, could not get enough of the mega-hit, blast­ed from every mu­sic truck in the band.

Ron­nie and Caro’s de­pic­tion of ‘The Serengeti’—por­tray­ing the wild an­i­mals in Africa—awash with colour and char­ac­ter al­so found that the stage went bad.

Be­tween 11 am and 4 pm, a to­tal of 15 bands had made their way be­fore the judges.

With the ex­cep­tion of Trinidad All Stars and Adren­a­line City- 13 of those bands crossed the stage to Stage Gone Bad.

If this trend con­tin­ues to­day, it will see Iw­er and Kees land­ing their first col­lab­o­ra­tive Road March.

Di­ef­fen­thaller has nev­er won a Road March ti­tle, while Iw­er last copped the ti­tle in 2000 when he tied with Austin ‘Su­per Blue’ Lyons with ‘Car­ni­val Come Back Again’.

In 2019, Dif­f­en­thaller’s ‘Sa­van­nah Grass’ was dubbed the ‘Peo­ple’s Road March’ af­ter a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous ti­tled “Famalay” swept the stage, bring­ing home the cov­et­ed Road March ti­tle.

And while the com­pe­ti­tion may not be over, if the vibe on the road is any in­di­ca­tion, 2020 will be the year that the stage goes bad.