Up to late yes­ter­day, it was any­body’s guess who to­day’s 2024 Road March win­ner might be, as the songs by Mi­cal Te­ja and Bun­ji Gar­lin dom­i­nat­ed the road.

Ear­ly fron­trun­ner DNA emerged as the peo­ple’s choice to cross the big stage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Many fe­male mas­quer­aders there said they were not leav­ing un­til they heard the hit tune, as Mi­cal Te­ja’s DNA caused mad­ness in the cap­i­tal city on Car­ni­val Tues­day.

But Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ni­val Con­tract was not to be left be­hind as it was still heavy on the minds and lips of mas­quer­aders who said that was the song of choice for the road. Some open­ly ex­pressed a pref­er­ence for Gar­lin’s Con­tract to en­joy the Car­ni­val.

Guardian Me­dia ob­served mas­quer­aders jump­ing and danc­ing to Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ni­val Con­tract which was a huge hit yes­ter­day. But when asked which song they liked for Road March 2024, many peo­ple al­so said DNA.

While on the big stage at the Sa­van­nah, mas­quer­ad­er El­va King said, “Epic! Won­der­ful! Awe­some! I like Bun­ji’s Car­ni­val Con­tract but I think Mi­cal Te­ja’s song en­cap­su­lates the core of Trinidad and To­ba­go and you could jump to it and I think that he should be get­ting road march.”

Te­ja al­so per­formed his hit song as sev­er­al bands crossed the QPS stage and al­so at the So­cadrome yes­ter­day.

Road March re­sults are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced by noon to­day.

Spec­ta­cle of colour, na­ture

Mean­while, the splen­dour of mas took over at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

From large bands such as The Lost Tribe, Yu­ma, Pa­parazzi, Harts and K2K Al­liance and Part­ners to small­er bands por­tray­ing tra­di­tion­al mas such as Next Lev­el Dev­ils and Trib­al Con­nec­tion Cul­tur­al Pro­mo­tion, every­one par­tak­ing in “the great­est show on earth” dis­played their very best cos­tumes as they thor­ough­ly en­joyed them­selves yes­ter­day.

And it wasn’t just biki­nis and feath­ers, as sev­er­al bands dis­played an ar­ray of beau­ti­ful fab­rics, tex­tures and cos­tumes for all shapes and sizes.

There was al­so a com­mon theme of con­nect­ing na­ture and Car­ni­val this year, as sev­er­al bands put their own spin on in­cor­po­rat­ing earth­ly el­e­ments in their sec­tions.

The Lost Tribe turned their mas­quer­aders in­to birds this year with sec­tions en­ti­tled Ibis, King Cor­beau, Scar­let Macaw, Wild Par­rot and Hum­ming­bird.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Pa­parazzi’s pre­sen­ta­tion of Iho­ka saw mas­quer­aders em­body­ing the myth­i­cal and for­got­ten trail nes­tled with­in Trinidad’s lush rain­forests.

Mean­while, K2K’s col­lec­tion en­ti­tled “The Salt Cross­ing” was a re­flec­tion of a desert sea­son.

From ex­pe­ri­enced mas­quer­aders to play­ing mas for the first time, many peo­ple said they loved the cal­i­bre of cos­tumes this year.

Avid Pa­parazzi mas­quer­ad­er Ayan­na Forde said she flies in from New York every year to play with the band and was es­pe­cial­ly drawn to the at­trac­tive blue, green, pink and gold colours of her cos­tume this year.

Forde said, “I love it. I’m al­ways on the road with them.”

Pa­parazzi al­so cel­e­brates its 10-year an­niver­sary this year.

And, first time mas­quer­ad­er from Brook­lyn, 23-year-old Afisha Nar­ine said, “I just love the free­dom of play­ing mas. I love the cos­tume, the colours, the so­ca mu­sic, every­thing.”

There were al­so many fa­mil­iar faces in cos­tumes.

From com­mand­ing the Di­manche Gras stage to rev­el­ling, the 2024 Ca­lyp­so Monarch 2nd place win­ner Karene As­che crossed the stage with Pa­parazzi.

Miss Uni­verse 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam shone bright­ly as she played with Harts.

As Yu­ma crossed the stage, there was a sec­tion of mas­quer­aders wav­ing a large Pales­tine flag in sup­port of the state amidst the cur­rent con­flict with Is­rael.