Sean Nero

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az said Fri­day's par­ty-style launch of Panora­ma 2014 was in­spired by Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra.For over a decade, the Duke Street-based steel­band has been stag­ing a Car­ni­val fete, So­ca by the Riv­er, in an ef­fort to cre­ate a space for steel­pan mu­sic which has lost its place on the ma­jor par­ty cir­cuit dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.

Sweet sounds on steel, as well as pul­sat­ing so­ca mu­sic from Roy Cape All Stars, filled the Grand Stand of the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah to her­ald the start of this year's edi­tion of Panora­ma. The pop­u­lar com­pe­ti­tion is in its 51st year.

Be­fore Roy Cape's time in the spot­light, which fea­tured a spe­cial guest ap­pear­ance by Black Stal­in (Leroy Cal­liste), pa­trons en­joyed per­for­mances by Fu­sion Steel, Steel Xplo­sion, Free­lancers, Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars and reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove.

Di­az said: "So­ca by the Riv­er is a good idea and we should sup­port this. So I said okay, if they can do that let's try and see how our show comes off and next year we will try and see how we can in­crease it. The launch is to show (fete) pro­mot­ers that we still have steel­bands that can per­form in a par­ty. Now they have vo­cal­ists in steel­bands."