Sascha Wil­son

Imag­ine chip­ping be­hind a 40-foot trail­er com­plete with a steel­band or­ches­tra, singers and mas­quer­aders on Car­ni­val Mon­day night.

Sounds like fun? Well, this is what Dar­ren Shep­pard and As­so­ciates will be putting out on the streets of San Fer­nan­do for mid­night mas.

It's called Mar­di Gras.

"It's the first time I am bring­ing out a band and we are look­ing at a New Or­leans-styled Car­ni­val. I want to de­pict an­oth­er style of Car­ni­val," said band­leader Dar­ren Shep­pard.

Al­so the leader of Kaizen Fuzun Steel Or­ches­tra, Shep­pard said the band will have four sec­tions, with cos­tumes com­pris­ing pret­ty feath­ered masks and beads and a T-shirt.

In ad­di­tion, he said four play­ers will be singing the hottest so­ca songs ac­com­pa­nied by the in­fec­tious pan mu­sic.

"It's the first time in San Fer­nan­do that there will be a 40-foot trail­er steel­band, ful­ly as­sem­bled with vo­cals. Bring­ing out this band is more chal­leng­ing than I thought, but I am en­joy­ing it."

Shep­pard chose Mon­day night mas be­cause it's a spe­cial night for pans.

"J'Ou­vert is too rugged, I al­ways thought so. We are bring­ing a dif­fer­ent touch to Mon­day night mas in San Fer­nan­do which is pre­dom­i­nate­ly DJs or tra­di­tion­al steel­band.

"The DJs usu­al­ly drown out the steel­bands but we will have the same amount of pow­er as them. It will be a lev­el play­ing field."

Promis­ing his mas­quer­aders and even spec­ta­tors great en­ter­tain­ment, Shep­pard said the time has come to re­think pan in south. He said a greater ef­fort has to be made to make the na­tion­al in­stru­ment more ac­cept­ed here.

The Mar­di Gras Mas Camp is on Clair Street, San Fer­nan­do. Reg­is­tra­tion be­gan in De­cem­ber and one sec­tion has al­ready sold out.