Pe­ter Ray Blood

Pan on the streets

He may not get his way to have the na­tion­al in­stru­ment pa­rade the streets on In­de­pen­dence Day but Bri­an Kuei Tung is sure­ly plan­ning to stage one of the biggest steel­band shows in west Trinidad ever. The for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and his Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz steel­band are putting on a mam­moth free con­cert and street fes­ti­val on Sep­tem­ber 1, to com­mem­o­rate the 50th an­niver­sary of our In­de­pen­dence. For this In­de­pen­dence Fi­es­ta, Play­boyz will be block­ing off a sub­set of Wood­brook on Tra­garete Road, be­tween French Street and Cipri­ani Boul­veard, be­tween 6pm and mid­night. Part of the in­fra­struc­ture for this am­bi­tious event is the con­struc­tion of five stages where var­i­ous facets of T&T cul­ture will be dis­played.

On the live en­ter­tain­ment side of the pro­gramme, half dozen of the biggest steel­bands in the land will per­form, joined by Ca­lyp­so King of the World Spar­row, Road March su­per­star Su­perBlue, vet­er­an peo­ple's favourite Lord Nel­son, Parang So­ca champ Scrunter and Pel­ham God­dard's Roots. How­ev­er, pri­or to the Play­boyz fi­es­ta, Wood­brook will pul­sate to the sound of our na­tion­al in­stru­ment on Au­gust 25, from 6.30 pm, when the Wood­brook Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion and Coun­cil­lor Cleve­land Gar­cia present Pan on D' Av­enue. Gar­cia ex­plained that this event is be­ing held to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of T&T's In­de­pen­dence. He said that steel­bands pa­rade along Ari­api­ta Av­enue, from Tay­lor Street to Colville Street. Along with the steel­bands will be a pa­rade of mas­quer­ade bands, led by the first of­fi­cial King and Queen of Car­ni­val–Col­in Edghill and Kay Christo­pher-crowned in 1963.

In­ner city Port-of-Spain is al­so sched­uled to pul­sate with live pan mu­sic, al­so on Au­gust 25, when City Sun­val­ley Steel Or­ches­tra hosts Cel­e­brat­ing the Icons of Nel­son Street, on Nel­son Street. Ger­ald Mendez, a mem­ber of the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee, said that the in­ten­tion of this ven­ture is to show­case a pos­i­tive side of this area, tra­di­tion­al­ly de­meaned by be­ing re­ferred to as "the ghet­to," and re­gard­ed as a crime hotspot. Mendez cit­ed sev­er­al out­stand­ing and law abid­ing cit­i­zens who have emerged from the Nel­son Street neigh­bour­hood, in­clud­ing for­mer Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy and en­tre­pre­neur Arthur Lok Jack. Steel­bands list­ed to per­form at the Nel­son Street gig in­clude Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, BP Rene­gades, Wit­co Des­per­a­does, Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz, Sapo­phon­ics, La Famile Unit­ed, Free­lancers and City Sun­val­ley.

Wood­brook Com­mu­ni­ty As­so­ci­a­tion Pan on D' Av­enue-Steel­band Pa­rade-Au­gust 25:

PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars,

Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove,

Star­lift,

Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz,

CAL In­vaders,

St James Tripo­lians,

Har­vard Harps,

Wit­co De­per­a­does,

Bp Rene­gades,

Hum­ming­bird Pan Groove,

Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists

Carib Wood­brook Play­boyz 50th An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence Fi­es­ta-Sep­tem­ber 1-En­ter­tain­ment list:

Wit­co Des­per­a­does

Petrotrin Phase II?Pan Groove

BP Renge­gades

PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars

Star­lift

Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus

Roots­man

Spar­row

Steve Sealy

Su­perBlue

Lord Nel­son

Scrunter

Ron­nie Mc In­tosh

Char­lies Roots

Tas­sa

Los Alum­nos De San Juan Parang Band

Old Time Mas Char­ac­ters

Re­ward­ing pan ex­cel­lence

Last Fri­day night, Pan Trin­ba­go host­ed one of its most im­pres­sive awards cer­e­monies ever at the Fes­ti­val Ball­room of Crowne Plaza in Port-of-Spain. The steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion pre­sent­ed some beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed awards to 37 "de­serv­ing" in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the late Allyson Hen­nessy; Caribbean Bot­tlers TT?Ltd; arrangers Gary Strak­er and Win­ston Gor­don; tuners Roland In­niss, Ed­ward "Peas" Al­vara­do and Neville "Bas­sa" Mu­ral­do; Women in Steel Mia Gorm­nandy, Julie Williams, Urslin Black­ett and Anthea Bal­four; and, pi­o­neers Ke­ston "Ed­die Boom" Moore, Ossie Man­nette, Jim In­niss and Her­man Scope.

Open­ing the smooth­ly co-or­di­nat­ed pro­gramme was the Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra, win­ner of mul­ti­ple awards and tro­phies at the last Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. Al­so guest­ing were St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege Steel Or­ches­tra, Ju­nior Sam­my Group of Com­pa­nies Skif­fle and Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus. The event was host­ed by ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties Sharon Pitt and David Mc In­tyre, and Min­is­ter of Arts &?Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas de­liv­er­ered the fea­ture ad­dress.

Pan open­ing for Ed­die Hart foot­ball

Pan holds the spot­light on Sun­day at the 46th an­nu­al open­ing of the Ed­die Hart Foot­ball League, in Tacarigua. Speak­ing to Pulse on the week­end, the for­mer Tu­na­puna par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive said that Sun­day's event will be a gala af­fair, cul­mi­nat­ing with the Big 7 Pan­tas­tic Show­down af­ter an af­ter­noon of foot­ball and the open­ing pa­rade. Ex­pect­ed to take the salute at the pa­rade, with 40 teams on the march, is Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts. Al­so stand­ing on the podi­um with Roberts is For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, sit­ting par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Tu­na­puna. Sun­day's pro­gramme in­cludes the pa­rade of 40 foot­ball teams, ex­hi­bi­tion games be­tween youth, In­ter­col and se­nior teams, and the pan shootout and par­ty. With mu­sic by pop­u­lar Ari­ma disc jock­ey DJ?KC Klass is Class, steel­bands billed to per­form are Neal &?Massy Trinidad All Stars, Petrotrin Phase II?Pan Groove, bp Rene­gades, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, Wit­co Des­per­a­does and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders. Hart al­so re­vealed for­mer na­tion­al crick­eter and se­lec­tor Alec Burns, fa­ther of Lon­don Olympics Men's 4x100 re­lay bronze medal­ist and na­tion­al team flag­bear­er Marc Burns, will be a spe­cial guest of ho­n­our at the open­ing. Ac­tion at the Ed­die Hart Ground is sched­uled to be­gin at 2.30 pm.

My queen – Good luck Athali­ah

Be­fore I end this week's col­umn I must wish good luck to Athali­ah Samuel, T&T's en­trant in to­mor­row's Miss World beau­ty pageant, to be held in In­ner Mon­go­lia, Chi­na. The sub­ject of much com­men­tary on the so­cial net­works re­cent­ly, Samuel is a stun­ning, tall, in­tel­li­gent, beau­ti­ful, ebony skin daugh­ter of John John, East Port-of-Spain. The St Phillip's Pri­ma­ry School/St Do­minic's Con­vent grad, who is al­so re­lat­ed to my long­time jour­nal­ism col­league, US-domi­ciled jour­nal­ist Pe­ter Noel, has a good chance at em­u­lat­ing Olympic gold medal­ist Keshorn Wal­cott in bring­ing home the lau­rel, if on­ly be­cause she is unique in looks and not like any of the stereo­typ­i­cal, Xe­rox-copy en­trants from many of the oth­er coun­tries. What makes her more spe­cial and a stand­out is that she is Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go, the same Caribbean trop­i­cal par­adise that pro­duced Janelle "Pen­ny" Com­mis­siong Chow, Wendy Fitzwilliam and Giselle Laronde-West....oh, and Project Run­way win­ner Anya Ay­oung Chee.

Re­ward­ing pan ex­cel­lence

Last Fri­day night, Pan Trin­ba­go host­ed one of its most im­pres­sive awards cer­e­monies ever at the Fes­ti­val Ball­room of Crowne Plaza in Port-of-Spain. The steel­band or­gan­i­sa­tion pre­sent­ed some beau­ti­ful­ly de­signed awards to 37 "de­serv­ing" in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing the late Allyson Hen­nessy; Caribbean Bot­tlers TT?Ltd; arrangers Gary Strak­er and Win­ston Gor­don; tuners Roland In­niss, Ed­ward "Peas" Al­vara­do and Neville "Bas­sa" Mu­ral­do; Women in Steel Mia Gorm­nandy, Julie Williams, Urslin Black­ett and Anthea Bal­four; and, pi­o­neers Ke­ston "Ed­die Boom" Moore, Ossie Man­nette, Jim In­niss and Her­man Scope.

Open­ing the smooth­ly co-or­di­nat­ed pro­gramme was the Gold­en Hands Steel Or­ches­tra, win­ner of mul­ti­ple awards and tro­phies at the last Na­tion­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val. Al­so guest­ing were St Fran­cois Girls' Col­lege Steel Or­ches­tra, Ju­nior Sam­my Group of Com­pa­nies Skif­fle and Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus. The event was host­ed by ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties Sharon Pitt and David Mc In­tyre, and Min­is­ter of Arts &?Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress.

Pan open­ing for Ed­die Hart foot­ball

Pan holds the spot­light on Sun­day at the 46th an­nu­al open­ing of the Ed­die Hart Foot­ball League, in Tacarigua. Speak­ing to Pulse on the week­end, the for­mer Tu­na­puna par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive said that Sun­day's event will be a gala af­fair, cul­mi­nat­ing with the Big 7 Pan­tas­tic Show­down af­ter an af­ter­noon of foot­ball and the open­ing pa­rade. Ex­pect­ed to take the salute at the pa­rade, with 40 teams on the march, is Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts. Al­so stand­ing on the podi­um with Roberts is For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, sit­ting par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Tu­na­puna. Sun­day's pro­gramme in­cludes the pa­rade of 40 foot­ball teams, ex­hi­bi­tion games be­tween youth, In­ter­col and se­nior teams, and the pan shootout and par­ty. With mu­sic by pop­u­lar Ari­ma disc jock­ey DJ KC Klass is Class, steel­bands billed to per­form are Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove, bp Rene­gades, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus, Wit­co Des­per­a­does and Cou­va Joy­lan­ders. Hart al­so re­vealed for­mer na­tion­al crick­eter and se­lec­tor Alec Burns, fa­ther of Lon­don Olympics Men's 4x100 re­lay bronze medal­ist and na­tion­al team flag­bear­er Marc Burns, will be a spe­cial guest of ho­n­our at the open­ing. Ac­tion at the Ed­die Hart Ground is sched­uled to be­gin at 2.30 pm.

My queen -Good luck Athali­ah

Be­fore I end this week's col­umn I must wish good luck to Athali­ah Samuel, T&T's en­trant in to­mor­row's Miss World beau­ty pageant, to be held in In­ner Mon­go­lia, Chi­na. The sub­ject of much com­men­tary on the so­cial net­works re­cent­ly, Samuel is a stun­ning, tall, in­tel­li­gent, beau­ti­ful, ebony skin daugh­ter of John John, East Port-of-Spain. The St Phillip's Pri­ma­ry School/St Do­minic's Con­vent grad, who is al­so re­lat­ed to my long­time jour­nal­ism col­league, US-domi­ciled jour­nal­ist Pe­ter Noel, has a good chance at em­u­lat­ing Olympic gold medal­ist Keshorn Wal­cott in bring­ing home the lau­rel, if on­ly be­cause she is unique in looks and not like any of the stereo­typ­i­cal, Xe­rox-copy en­trants from many of the oth­er coun­tries. What makes her more spe­cial and a stand­out is that she is Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go, the same Caribbean trop­i­cal par­adise that pro­duced Janelle "Pen­ny" Com­mis­siong Chow, Wendy Fitzwilliam and Giselle Laronde-West....oh, and Project Run­way win­ner Anya Ay­oung Chee.