Kevon Felmine

Spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders left the streets of San Fer­nan­do dis­ap­point­ed af­ter po­lice com­mand­ed an abrupt halt to all pan and night mas on Car­ni­val Mon­day Night. Two pan sides and five mas bands were de­nied the chance to pro­ceed to the judg­ing point at Sut­ton Street as of­fi­cers in­struct­ed DJs and the band lead­ers to cease their mu­sic and re­turn to the start­ing point. As Too Bad Pro­mo­tions' Mas band pre­sen­ta­tion of In Liv­ing Colours ap­proached Sut­ton Street, mas­quer­aders gasped in dis­be­lief that their night was cut short.

A South­ern Di­vi­sion Se­nior of­fi­cer said there was some mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween Car­ni­val or­gan­is­ers and the po­lice as there was no oth­er shift to over­see the night's pro­ceed­ings as the mas had gone be­yond the al­lot­ted 1 am cut-off time. He dis­missed ru­mours that there was any vi­o­lence, say­ing that mas with­in the en­tire di­vi­sion was peace­ful. There was a large pres­ence of heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers man­ning the streets of the city.

Al­though the pan com­pe­ti­tion was sched­uled to com­mence at 6 pm, the first band, Pan El­ders, reached the Cof­fee Street judg­ing point at 9 pm. Mar­shals sit­u­at­ed at Cof­fee Street had to leave their sta­tions and pro­ceed to the start­ing po­si­tions to urge bands on­to the routes. It was not the an­tic­i­pat­ed crowd turnout for the Car­ni­val Mon­day Night com­pe­ti­tion in San Fer­nan­do. In­stead, many opt­ed to re­main close to their homes and sup­port­ed com­pe­ti­tions in sub­ur­ban ar­eas such as Mara­bel­la and Gas­par­il­lo which saw an in­crease in spec­ta­tors from years gone by.

Even as nine steel bands and five mas bands took to the streets in full ar­ray of colours, many of those who were present in San Fer­nan­do, chose to lime at bars along Sut­ton Street and Cipero Street. How­ev­er in the pan com­pe­ti­tion, it was reign­ing San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val pan cham­pi­ons Ju­nior Sam­my Skif­fle Bunch who looked set to re­tain their ti­tle with a jam­ming per­for­mance. The band de­liv­ered a siz­zling ren­di­tion of De­stra Gar­cia's Bon­nie and Clyde which woke up the spec­ta­tors gath­ered along the street.

The youth­ful en­er­gy of the Old Tech Steel Or­ches­tra con­tin­ued with their im­pres­sive vein of form, per­form­ing Lord Kitch­en­er's Mys­tery Band. Oth­ers pass­ing along the routes in­clud­ed San City, South­ern Marines, Pana­son­ic Con­nec­tions and the on­ly south band to par­tic­i­pate in this year's na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nals large band cat­e­go­ry, NL­CB Fon­claire. At 11.45 pm, the pur­ple-at­tired Mon­day Night mas band, Mon Re­pos Posse brought some life to the cel­e­bra­tions.

Flanked by a large group of sup­port­ers who fol­lowed them through­out the en­tire route, the band fi­nal­ly brought the par­ty at­mos­phere to spec­ta­tors. Though they were by far the largest in num­ber, how­ev­er, they lacked the vari­a­tion of colours that is as­so­ci­at­ed with the com­pe­ti­tion. In­stead, it was small­er bands such as Too Bad Pro­mo­tions and Roy­al­ty and Friends' pre­sen­ta­tion of Say What that showed off their cre­ativ­i­ty.

Cos­sil Cul­tur­al Posse showed a bit of vari­a­tion when they pre­sent­ed their west­ern style out­fit for their pre­sen­ta­tion of Whis­tle and Wine. Chip­ping along the trail to Machel Mon­tano's Whis­tle and Wine, the all-fe­male mas­quer­aders decked in pur­ple tops and glit­ter­ing gold skirt and hats, brought much-need­ed life to the mas.