Sean Nero

Nine­teen years af­ter PCS Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra con­cep­tu­alised, pack­aged and pre­miered the Christ­mas mu­sic show­case known as Parang and Steel, it still evokes sim­i­lar re­spons­es from fans: cheers of joy and lots of danc­ing.

The event took place last Sat­ur­day, at the pre­mere of the five-week pro­duc­tion, held at the band's Tra­garete Road, New­town, head­quar­ters. Scores of pa­trons turned out for the scin­til­lat­ing en­ter­tain­ment line-up that in­clud­ed Ken­ny J, Los Di­nam­i­cos and host Sil­ver Stars. While pa­trons weren't too thrilled with the pre­sen­ta­tion from the parang group, they ex­pressed ab­solute de­light for per­for­mances from the re­main­ing cast. Mu­sic lovers were ea­ger for Ken­ny J's so­ca parang ren­der­ings, such as Paint Brush and Alexan­der. His unique de­liv­ery of these orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions ex­plained the hype that re­volved around his im­pend­ing per­for­mance.

It seems pa­trons couldn't get enough of Sil­ver Stars ei­ther, nor its drill­mas­ter/con­duc­tor Donell Thomas. The au­di­ence rev­eled in Thomas' an­tics, as he guid­ed the band through the mu­si­cal moods of Phan­tom of the Opera by An­drew Lloyd Web­ber, as well as Bad from the late Michael Jack­son. Oth­er chart top­ping se­lec­tions per­formed by Sil­ver Stars on the night were I'm Alive from Ce­line Dion; Par­ty, from Dr Leroy Cal­liste, the Black Stal­in; and, the mem­o­rable yule­tide favourite, Kiss Me for Christ­mas from Kel­wyn Hutcheon.