Af­ter an ex­haust­ing yet spir­it­ed 31 hours of play­ing melodies on the steel pan, Guin­ness World Record hope­ful Joshua Re­grel­lo spent yes­ter­day morn­ing at church. Asked about his im­me­di­ate plans fol­low­ing his marathon ses­sion at WACK 90.1 FM stu­dio on Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do, on Sat­ur­day, Re­grel­lo ad­mit­ted he had not thought that far ahead.

How­ev­er, he post­ed a pho­to­graph on Tik­Tok, stand­ing in front of a church, cap­tioned, “the pow­er of God on full dis­play.”

With Farmer Nap­py’s Thank­ful as the sound­track, he wrote:

“Church this morn­ing. Be­fore every­thing, I want to thank you, Fa­ther, for nev­er aban­don­ing me. If you could hear my in­ter­nal di­a­logue or at times read my lips, you would have seen a man of faith say­ing, ‘Give me the strength for one more hour, please.’ And when my strength was fleet­ing, you did not just send broth­ers and sis­ters to push me through; you sent the en­tire coun­try. 31 hours—the pow­er of God on full dis­play.”

He ac­com­pa­nied the post with a verse from Philip­pi­ans 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ, who strength­ens me.”

Yes­ter­day, Re­grel­lo said he and his team had to sub­mit the ev­i­dence now. He added all the re­quire­ments were met and every­thing was be­ing com­piled to be sent, fol­low­ing which he would be wait­ing for feed­back from of­fi­cials at the Guin­ness World Record.

Calls for na­tion­al recog­ni­tion

The 27-year-old sur­passed his goal to play the steel pan for 30 hours, in his quest to set a Guin­ness World Record for the na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Re­grel­lo be­gan his per­for­mance on the tenor pan at 6.28 am on Fri­day. The venue, lo­cat­ed just a stone’s throw from the Her­itage Skif­fle Steel Or­ches­tra pan yard where he honed his skills, served as a sym­bol­ic back­drop for his record-break­ing en­deav­our. He con­clud­ed his per­for­mance at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.30 pm on Sat­ur­day, com­plet­ing 31 hours of con­tin­u­ous pan play­ing.

Dur­ing his marathon, Re­grel­lo was joined by renowned so­ca artistes, in­clud­ing Na­dia Bat­son, Farmer Nap­py, Voice, Preedy, Dev, and vi­o­lin­ists An­dre Don­awa and Mr Strings.

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) is among the many cel­e­brat­ing the achieve­ments of the pan­nist.

In a video state­ment, NTA Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Er­rol Fa­bi­en ex­pressed his joy and pride at Re­grel­lo’s ef­forts.

“I am hap­py, over­joyed, over­whelmed, and ‘over every­thing,’ hav­ing wit­nessed Re­grel­lo’s bid to have his name in the Guin­ness Book of World Records for play­ing pan for 30 hours,” Fa­bi­en said.

Re­fer­ring to him­self as “Un­cle Er­rol,” Fa­bi­en laud­ed the achieve­ment as a mon­u­men­tal feat.

“I salute him and his par­ents. I salute the en­tire ef­fort. Long live the steel pan, long live the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. One love,” he added.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress can­di­date for the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy, Dr Michael Dowlath, al­so ex­tend­ed his con­grat­u­la­tions via Face­book. The for­mer Na­pari­ma Col­lege prin­ci­pal and chair­man of the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil de­scribed Re­grel­lo’s ef­forts as a re­mark­able en­deav­our.

“As a proud alum­nus of Na­pari­ma Col­lege, your ded­i­ca­tion, and pas­sion for mu­sic em­body the ex­cel­lence and de­ter­mi­na­tion fos­tered at the school. Best of luck on this in­cred­i­ble jour­ney,” Dowlath wrote.

Re­grel­lo’s lengthy per­for­mance earned ad­mi­ra­tion both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Among those cel­e­brat­ing his suc­cess were Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Pan Trin­ba­go and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, all prais­ing his his­toric feat.