The “Wa­ter Lord” Iw­er George stuck true to his word and did not grace the Machel Mon­day stage but that did not stop tens of thou­sands of so­ca lovers from get­ting a wa­ter bless­ing.

When the heav­ens first opened up at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um with a light driz­zle, Machel Mon­tano fans had no care and rev­elled in one of T&T Car­ni­val’s sig­na­ture event. But around 2 am the show­er be­came more per­sis­tent and many pa­trons left the con­cert still yearn­ing for the heav­i­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed per­for­mance from Grena­di­an sen­sa­tion Mr Kil­la.

It al­so came af­ter Mon­tano con­tin­ued to taunt Iw­er on stage de­spite their rec­on­cil­i­a­tion at Ron­nie and Caro’s mas camp in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day fol­low­ing years of an on and off beef.

Dur­ing his per­for­mance of his two-part hit, Dr Mash Up, which was penned in re­sponse to Iw­er’s Road March Bac­cha­nal, Machel ques­tioned where his so­ca ri­val was.

“Where where you gone?” Mon­tano shout­ed with a sly fa­cial ex­pres­sion.

He even freestyled about Iw­er’s ex­pla­na­tion for not per­form­ing at his show, singing, “That is the worst, he didn’t re­hearse, but that is a curse, I know you got paid… Iw­er where you gone, is like you get­ting a horn, why you run from Machel?”

Machel did end with say­ing, “Georgie, ah love yuh.”

But in a wit­ty re­sponse on Face­book, George post­ed a pho­to­graph of rain falling over a city with an en­larged im­age of him smil­ing in the back­ground. He cap­tioned it, “Even in my ab­sence, my pres­ence was felt,” with the hash­tags #Come­In­Front­ForIt, #Wa­terB­less­ings.

The con­cert fea­tured sev­er­al for­eign artistes Machel col­lab­o­rat­ed with for his 45th ca­reer al­bum, ti­tled G.O.A.T (Great­est of All Time). It in­clud­ed US R&B artiste Ashan­ti, Guade­loupe’s Kas­sav, St Lu­cia’s Mot­to and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous.

Dur­ing his per­for­mance, Machel ad­mit­ted his hunger for Famalay to win him his ninth Road March ti­tle and a first by Bun­ji Gar­lin and his­to­ry for Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, who would be the first for­eign­er to achieve the feat. What was usu­al­ly a tight show start­ed off late with a sig­nif­i­cant crowd build­ing up be­fore the DJs even start­ed their playlist. Many in the $1,200 Di­a­mond Ul­tra Chic Lounge, $600 Plat­inum VIP and $300 Gen­er­al sec­tions took the time to get a meal ahead of a long night of wine-in­vok­ing mu­sic. It was al­so a time when the cam­eras were promi­nent, with the ladies show­ing off a va­ri­ety of fash­ion from el­e­gant evening wear to translu­cent body­suits.

But 8.55 pm, the A-Team band was in per­fect har­mo­ny and so­ca hot­tie Nailah Black­man opened the show with her Iron Love, Games and Sokah, pro­vid­ing a suf­fi­cient warm-up giv­en the chilly and over­cast weath­er. As he has done through­out this Car­ni­val sea­son, Shal Mar­shal turned up the heat when he belt­ed out a few 2018 and 2019 hits, so too did Patrice Roberts, Sekon Sta and Ravi B.

Fire­works sig­nal dra­ma

Af­ter a 45-minute break, the dra­ma to come was sig­nalled by the ex­plo­sion of fire­works and con­fet­ti. While there was jump and wave and wine for the open­ing acts, the mere sound of Mon­tano’s voice cre­at­ed an ex­cite­ment on his first ap­pear­ance. Glit­ter­ing in a ful­ly gold en­sem­ble, he had fans dash­ing to­ward the stage. De­liv­er­ing from his long reper­toire, Mon­tano had the stush, el­der­ly and the over­ly dressed evolv­ing in­to win­ning cham­pi­ons.

Just three songs in­to his set Mon­tano in­tro­duced Skin­ny Fab­u­lous and Bun­ji Gar­lin to per­form Famalay. It was then the first bout of driz­zle de­scend­ed but the show re­mained in full swing. Such was the fren­zy that Mon­tano even took a dive in­to the crowd and was caught and hoist­ed by a will­ing crew.

“I don’t care if I get sick to­mor­row. I fet­ing in the rain. We go­ing straight to work to­mor­row,” one pa­tron was heard say­ing at this stage.

Mon­tano de­liv­ered Mr Fete, The Fog, Haunt­ed and Bot­tle of Rum as fans sang along. There was even a ses­sion of vin­tage Mon­tano from the old Xtat­ic and Machel Mon­tano HD days, in­clud­ing hits like Pret­ty Girls, Hard Work­ing Dog and Dance With You. He then showed what he meant by tak­ing so­ca to the uni­verse, adding some Latin flavour with Cu­ba’s Cima­funk and a French cre­ole taste with Kas­sav. Even in dance, he showed the glob­al reach of so­ca, show­ing off his Pol­ish, Swiss and Slo­va­kian dancers, who gave the Tri­ni win­ers a lit­tle run for their mon­ey. Even his daugh­ter, Melanie Mon­tano showed off her dance moves.

Grena­da’s V’ghn then showed why he is favoured to cop the In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance of his Trou­ble in the Morn­ing. Farmer Nap­py, dressed all gen­tle­man­ly and Na­dia Bat­son then per­formed their hits on the Pur­ple Heart Rid­dim. Nes­sa Prep­py came to the stage with her Is­sa Snack, which she re­cent­ly remixed with Mon­tano.

Ashan­ti, dressed as a Car­ni­val queen, then added sweet vo­cals to the event in per­form­ing The Road with Mon­tano. And while fans on­ly want so­ca at a Car­ni­val event, they wel­comed and sang along as she de­liv­ered her ear­ly 2000 hits like Un­fool­ish, Hap­py and cho­rus­es from her col­lab­o­ra­tions with Ja Rule (Al­ways on Time) and Fat Joe (What’s Luv).

Around 2 am, the show­ers re­turned with more force, lead­ing to a stam­pede for shel­ter. But Mon­tano con­tin­ued per­form­ing and brought on Shar­lan Bai­ley who paid trib­ute to his fa­ther, the late Mighty Shad­ow, in song. There were com­plaints that the show was too long and dis­ap­point­ment from some that they did not get to see Mr Kil­la per­form be­fore the rain be­came too much. But for those who re­mained, the Grena­di­an artiste did not dis­ap­point and end­ed the show with gus­to.