Wes­ley Gib­bings

Medi­um band, Pan­de­mo­ni­um Steel Or­ches­tra, will kick off to­day’s lengthy pro­ceed­ings when the coun­try’s top 31 medi­um and large bands hit the stage in the an­nu­al Panora­ma Con­ven­tion­al Bands com­pe­ti­tion at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah from 1 pm.

Shell In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra will lead the way lat­er on as the Large Bands, fea­tur­ing be­tween 100 and 150 play­ers, take the stage.

Though there have been com­pet­i­tive ties be­fore, this year’s com­pe­ti­tions have been note­wor­thy for the num­ber of dead­locks—three each in the medi­um and large cat­e­gories lead­ing up to to­day’s semis.

It would mean­while oc­cur to many that last year’s large band fi­nal yield­ed a tie in­volv­ing BP Rene­gades and Massy All Stars—two of this year’s strong con­tenders. In Jan­u­ary, there was al­so a two-way tie for first place among the small bands with noth­ing to sep­a­rate T&TEC New East Side Di­men­sion and Gold­en Hands with 279 points.

The pre­lim­i­nary ties mean that to­day’s en­coun­ters will see 15 large and 16 medi­um bands on stage in­stead of the stip­u­lat­ed 14 bands per cat­e­go­ry, “in or­der of mer­it.”

The pre­lim­i­nary round of com­pe­ti­tion among the large bands failed to find an ad­judged dif­fer­ence be­tween the per­for­mances of third-placed BP Rene­gades and T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, each on 273 points.

And there were four bands ty­ing for 6th place on 271 points—Phase II Pan Groove, NL­CB Fon­claire, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Skif­fle, and RBC Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters. Four bands al­so tied for 10th on 269 points—Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars, Shell In­vaders, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Siparia Del­tones, and NL­CB Buc­cooneers.

There was, how­ev­er, a one-point dif­fer­ence be­tween fron­trun­ners Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus Steel Or­ches­tra on 276 points and First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas on 275. The ties mean that all 15 pre­lim­i­nary con­tes­tants will be on stage to­day.

At the pre­lim­i­nary stage for the medi­um bands, there was noth­ing to sep­a­rate Curepe Scherzan­do from San City Steel Or­ches­tra for 11th place with 257 points apiece. There was a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing the three 14th-placed bands—Pan­de­mo­ni­um Steel Or­ches­tra, Trinidad Val­ley Harps, and NGC Steel Xplo­sion.

The third tie was for 17th place, in­volv­ing two bands that did not qual­i­fy for to­day’s con­test—Val­ley Harps Steel Or­ches­tra and Pow­er Stars. Last week’s large band pre­lim­i­nar­ies be­gan in the East Zone with Ex­o­dus and Su­per­novas de­liv­er­ing stir­ring but con­trast­ing ver­sions of their se­lect­ed tunes—Too Own Way by Voice and Kes the Band’s Co­coa Tea re­spec­tive­ly.

There were ca­pac­i­ty crowds to wit­ness the pro­ceed­ings both in Lopinot and St Au­gus­tine.

When the ac­tion moved to the North Zone on Mon­day, how­ev­er, au­di­ences out­matched any­thing wit­nessed in the East with po­lice con­tin­gents called in to man­age huge flows of pedes­tri­an and road traf­fic.

When the judges made their way down to the South Zone on Tues­day, it was clear that the com­pe­ti­tion would be equal­ly keen, as the re­sults even­tu­al­ly re­flect­ed—NL­CB Fon­claire lead­ing the way.

To­ba­go’s two-band chal­lenge was equal­ly in­trigu­ing, with Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters emerg­ing su­pe­ri­or, play­ing Lord Kitch­en­er’s 1976 Road March win­ning, Flag Woman.

Over­all, Bet Meh by Machel Mon­tano and Co­coa Tea shared the ho­n­ours as the most played tunes—three times apiece.

To­day’s marathon pro­ceed­ings will de­ter­mine the top ten bands in each cat­e­go­ry to face each oth­er in the fi­nals. The medi­um band fi­nals will be host­ed in To­ba­go on Feb­ru­ary 23 and the large band fi­nal­ists will face each oth­er at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah on March 1. Semi­fi­nal ties can ex­pand the num­bers.