DAVID CUFFY

The three steel or­ches­tras that tied for first place in the pre­lim­i­nary round of com­pe­ti­tion in the Sin­gle Pan Bands cat­e­go­ry of the 2014 Na­tion­al Steel­band Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion re­ceived loud ap­plause from the sparse au­di­ence in the Grand Stand at the se­mi-fi­nal round staged by Pan Trin­ba­go at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Tiger Tanks Fyz­abad 4th Di­men­sion, La Cre­ole Pan Groove, and T&T Fire Ser­vices Steel Or­ches­tras each scored 270 points for top spot in the pre­lim­i­nary round for their ren­di­tions of Jump (On D Count of 4) (Rus­sell Cado­gan), Car­ni­val Ta­ban­ca (Ian Al­varez), and Rain­o­ra­ma (Ald­wyn Roberts) re­spec­tive­ly.

Thir­ty-two or­ches­tras com­pet­ed in the cat­e­go­ry, each seek­ing to win a place among the 16 that would be cho­sen to ad­vance to the fi­nal, which will take place at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, start­ing at 6 pm.

Fyz­abad 4th Di­men­sion ap­peared in po­si­tion sev­en to per­form a Richard Git­tens arrange­ment of the se­lec­tion that came from the pen of Cado­gan in 1992. La Cre­ole Pan Groove played in po­si­tion ten, while T&T Fire Ser­vices fol­lowed in po­si­tion 11. Pan Groove had Yohann Pop­well do the arrange­ment of Al­varez's 2013 com­po­si­tion, while Fire Ser­vices' ren­di­tion of Rain­o­ra­ma was arranged by B J Mar­celle.

The com­pe­ti­tion be­gan at 12.45 pm with brief re­marks from Bry­on Ser­rette, the vice-pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go. He asked pa­trons to ob­serve a minute's si­lence for the pass­ing of two stal­warts of pan: Lenny Mar­cano and Car­lie By­er.

Mem­bers of Nu Pi­o­neers Pan Groove of Ari­ma were made to wait on stage for al­most half-an-hour to be­gin their per­for­mance, due to the late ar­rival of one of the judges. Nu Pi­o­neers' tune of choice was Sweet and Sexy, com­posed by Len "Boogsie" Sharpe in 1999, and sung by Anslem Dou­glas. It was arranged by Sean and Si­mon Mar­cano.The next band was Ari­ma's Trinidad Nos­tal­gic; mem­bers played an Am­rit Sama­roo arrange­ment of Kitch­en­er's 1974 com­po­si­tion Jeri­cho.

There fol­lowed a swift pro­ces­sion of bands, so that by 4.30 pm 17 or­ches­tras had de­liv­ered their se­lec­tions be­fore the ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el com­pris­ing Joan­na Shortt, Giselle Alexan­der, Ken­rick Noel, Ro­jelle Granger, Hugh Bor­de and Tom­my Critchlow.The se­mi-fi­nal round in the Small Bands cat­e­go­ry, in which 21 or­ches­tras were list­ed to com­pete, was sched­uled to fol­low the Sin­gle Pan Bands con­test.