DAVID CUFFY

A small crowd of pan sup­port­ers showed up for the Na­tion­al Sin­gle Pan Panora­ma pre­lim­i­nar­ies at The Pad­dock, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of Spain, on Sat­ur­day.Twen­ty-eight of the 29 bands reg­is­tered for the six-hour-plus event per­formed be­fore the judg­ing pan­el in a bid to se­cure places in the semi­fi­nal round of event, which was host­ed by Pan Trin­ba­go's North­ern Re­gion.

The T&T De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra had to with­draw from com­pe­ti­tion fol­low­ing the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty's sus­pen­sion of all sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties by mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces un­til fur­ther no­tice, due to the alarm­ing num­ber of mur­ders oc­cur­ring in the na­tion. The band placed sec­ond in last year's fi­nal.

The com­pet­ing bands' se­lec­tions in­clud­ed works from the late Grand­mas­ter Ald­wyn "Lord Kitch­en­er" Roberts (Six­ty Sev­en, Rain­o­ra­ma), Ken­neth Charles/Alvin Daniell (Men of Steel), Clive Tele­maque/Shirlane Hen­drick­son (Ex­cite­ment), Ian Al­varez (Car­ni­val Ta­ban­ca) Austin Lyons (Re­bec­ca, Spankin, Fire Com­ing Down, Break­away), Scrunter (Sing In She Par­ty) and Ron­nie McIn­tosh (Shakin It, Hap­py), as well as Crazy, Stal­in, John­ny King, Duke, Neil "Iw­er" George, and Len "Boogsie" Sharpe.

The con­test start­ed one hour lat­er than the ad­ver­tised 5 pm with the per­for­mance by Mu­sic Mak­ers from Strak­er Vil­lage, Laven­tille.Led by David De Roche, the band played a Ken­neth Charles arrange­ment of Men of Steel, a 2014 com­po­si­tion from the pen of Ken­neth Charles/Alvin Daniell, and sung by Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, on in­stru­ments tuned by Gabriel "Doyle" Rob­ley.

Af­ter 14 or­ches­tras had show­cased their songs in just un­der three hours be­fore the ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el, com­pris­ing Giselle Alexan­der, Ken­rick Noel, Ro­jelle Granger and Hugh Bor­de, an in­ter­mis­sion was tak­en at 8.45 pm.A slight driz­zle on the re­sump­tion did not de­ter the bands from per­form­ing.The event end­ed at 12.30 am yes­ter­day. The semi­fi­nals are sched­uled for the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, on Feb­ru­ary 15 from noon.

Or­der of ap­pear­ance:

Mu­sic Mak­ers – Men of Steel (Ken­neth Charles/Alvin Daniell)

Spree Si­mon Har­mon­ics – Nah Do Dat (Neil "Iw­er" George)

Uni Stars – Woman Is Boss (Len "Boogsie" Sharpe)

Bel­mont Hi Larks – Spankin (Austin Lyons)

Gon­za­les Sheik­ers – Free Up (Chris "Tam­bu" Her­bert)

St James Tripo­lians – Doh Try Dat (Ed­win Ay­oung)

Star­dust Steel Orch – Pan Re­demp­tion (Ja­son "Peanut" Isaac)

D'Orig­i­nal W/brook Mod­er­naires – Sing in She Par­ty (Owen Reyes John­son)

Free­lancers Pan Groove – Feel­ing to Par­ty (Leroy Cal­liste)

City Sun Val­ley – Shak­ing It (Emanuel Ec­tor/Ron­nie McIn­tosh)

Nay­al Hill School of Mu­sic – Spankin (Austin Lyons)

Blan­ca 47 – Iw­er But­ter­fly Shad­ow (Col­in Lu­cas)

Brim­blers – Ah Want It (John­ston King)

Nut­tin Big Pan Groove – Hap­py (Ron­nie McIn­tosh)

One Love Steel Orch – Six­ty Sev­en (Ald­wyn Roberts)

DUn­touch­able Pan Groove – Re­bec­ca (Austin Lyons)

World Wide – Pan In Yuh Rookunker­tung­cung (Duke)

La Famille Unit­ed Steel Orch – Ah Wine Is Ah Wine (Neil "Iw­er" George)

Scrun­ters Pan Groove – Break­away (Austin Lyons/Leon Grey)

Pierre Nos­trand Sym­pho­ny – Ex­cite­ment (Clive Tele­maque/Shirlane Hen­drick­son)

T&T Fire Ser­vice – Rain­o­ra­ma (Ald­wyn Roberts/Ter­rence BJ Mar­celle)

La Cre­ole Pan Groove – Car­ni­val Ta­ban­ca (Ian Al­varez/Yohan Pop­well)

Scor­pi­on Pan Re­flec­tions – Fire Com­ing Down (Austin Lyons)

Bel­mont City Kids – Dr Wine (Bun­ny By­noe)

Carib W/brook Play­boyz – Spankin (Austin Lyons)

All Aces – Mind Yuh Busi­ness (Len "Boogsie" Sharpe)

Harlem Syn­co­pa­tors – Break­away (Austin Lyons)

Ice Wa­ter – Car­ni­val Ta­ban­ca (Ian Al­varez)