Sean Nero

Mu­sic group Machel Mon­tanoHD has been re­con­sti­tut­ed to give rise to oth­er voic­es with­in the out­fit, who con­tin­ue to thrill mu­sic lovers every­where. New mu­si­cal lines have been drawn to give Patrice Roberts, Umi Mar­cano, Zan (Joel Levi Feveck), and Farmer Nap­py (Dar­ryl Hen­ry) greater promi­nence in the band. Mean­while, Mon­tano will di­vide his time in the spot­light and be­hind the scenes in ar­eas that in­clude but are not lim­it­ed to song-writ­ing and sound en­gi­neer­ing, ac­cord­ing to for­mer man­ag­er and moth­er Eliz­a­beth Mon­tano.

Fans should get used to hear­ing stage calls such as Patrice Roberts and HD or Umi Mar­cano and HD. The strate­gic move is de­signed to give the brand longevi­ty on a mu­sic cir­cuit where bands fold overnight with­out warn­ing. But it does not mean sup­port­ers won't ben­e­fit from their com­bined per­for­mances, as wit­nessed at the pre­mi­um event called HD Re­vealed, held at the Zen night club lo­cat­ed on Keate Street in Port-of-Spain, last Wednes­day. Pro­duced by Mon­tano (Eliz­a­beth), HD Re­vealed was a well script­ed event, fea­tur­ing an ide­al mix of known and emerg­ing re­gion­al so­ca en­ter­tain­ers, as well as lo­cals. Ear­li­er on the pro­gramme, be­fore the bare back­side episode, Mon­tano de­clared Roberts as one of the best in the busi­ness with an ex­cel­lent fu­ture.

Roberts had the ho­n­our of set­ting the stan­dard at HD Re­vealed and scored a ma­jor per­for­mance tri­umph. She did col­lab­o­ra­tions with Tian Win­ter of An­tigua and South African-born, T&T-bred so­ca artiste Cathy El­la, who was a mem­ber of Taxi and rose to fame in the late 80s with the se­lec­tion French Man, fond­ly known and Sook­ie, Sook­ie, Sook­ie. Farmer Nap­py struck a well re­ceived mu­si­cal part­ner­ship with Gen­er­al Grant (Cur­tis Grant), while Zan's did not al­low his tight sneak­ers to hurt his per­for­mance.

His sec­ond ap­pear­ance saw him take the au­di­ence's ad­vice and re­move the un­com­fort­able footwear, to cheers. Re­cov­er­ing from an on stage in­jury sus­tained at Crop Over in Bar­ba­dos, back in Ju­ly, Mar­cano limped in­to the spot­light with a cane to de­liv­er an in­cred­i­ble show. Ba­jan en­ter­tain­er Big­gie Irie (Carl­ton Cor­dle) was al­so on the cast, adding to the event with his groovy so­ca treat, while Nni­ka Fran­cis out of Grena­da, who hopes to cre­ate a mu­si­cal stir for T&T Car­ni­val 2010, got off to a fine start.