Pe­ter Ray Blood

From ear­ly morn­ing, fore­cast­ers warned of thun­der­storms in Las Cuevas and it seems that show host Richard Forteau, Pan Trin­ba­go sec­re­tary, was cor­rect when he said "God loves pan." Rain fell from about 6 pm but it was in­ter­mit­tent.

De­spite the weath­er, an ex­treme­ly large crowd was on hand at Pan in De Coun­try­side, staged by Pan Trin­ba­go Inc, in con­junc­tion with the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture & the Arts at the spa­cious Las Cuevas On The Greens.

Some say it was the largest crowd to at­tend one of these events, one which al­so in­clud­ed an ex­cur­sion from Point Fortin of 25 pan lovers. They have at­tend­ed every edi­tion of Pan in De Coun­try­side, in­clud­ing those staged in To­ba­go.

Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture & the Arts Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly was an ear­ly at­tendee to Sat­ur­day's event and was seen trudg­ing through the rain as the VIP re­served tent was over­tak­en by pa­trons seek­ing shel­ter. The min­is­ter and her en­tourage were seen stand­ing in the rain look­ing at the per­for­mance by Red Hill D'Abadie Parks Foun­da­tion Lim­bo dance troupe at 7.30 pm.

Al­so present on Sat­ur­day were di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Su­san Cor­bett, Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment ac­count­ing ex­ec­u­tive Car­ol Ann Forde, Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, past Pan Trin­ba­go of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Owen Ser­rette, Dr Fin­bar Fletch­er and Kei­th By­er. Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen iman Yasin Abu Bakr al­so at­tend­ed with the Ja­maat steel­band, West­ern Stars Phil­har­mon­ics.

On Sat­ur­day, Pan Jam­mers of San­ta Cruz was the first steel­band to per­form, fol­lowed by Mara­cas com­mu­ni­ty band North Coast Ser­e­naders, which thrilled with its set of retro se­lec­tions.

Res­i­dents of Las Cuevas, Mara­cas, Blan­chissuese, La Fil­lette and en­vi­rons turned up in their num­bers to wel­come the con­voys of vis­i­tors mak­ing the trek to the scenic North Coast. Many farm­ers, chefs, and cloth­ing, hand­i­craft and con­fec­tionary mer­chants made a brisk trade sell­ing pro­vi­sion, de­li­cious fish meals, home­made del­i­ca­cies like farine bis­cuits, pone, seamoss and beet­root punch­es.

North Coast Em­pow­er­ment Group, based at Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary School, was one of the groups sell­ing food and mer­chan­dise. Its pres­i­dent Gem­ma Thomas told Pulse: "We are three years old and our pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to em­pow­er the res­i­dents of our com­mu­ni­ty. Our group con­sists of five sub com­mit­tees and among our projects is the thrust to try and get in­ter­net ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to the North Coast which is now lim­it­ed. We are al­so try­ing to en­hance farm­ing, do par­ent train­ing and have in­tro­duced a Maringa Project to en­hance farm­ing. We are al­so in the process of gen­er­at­ing a com­mu­ni­ty farm."

Reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma Sin­gle Pan cham­pi­on Trinidad East Side pleas­ant­ly sur­prised all in at­ten­dance with its per­for­mance. The Mal­ick, Barataria steel­band aug­ment­ed its pans with horns, vi­o­lin, bass and vo­cals. Its guest per­form­ers were parang queen Ali­cia Jag­gasar of Los Alum­nos de San Juan who sang La Vi­da es un Car­ni­val, vi­o­lin­ist Inge Schluer, trum­peter Rel­lon Brown and trom­bon­ists Josef Ward and Joshua Pasqual.

Show­ered with com­pli­ments from ap­pre­cia­tive pa­trons, East Side Sym­pho­ny cap­tain Car­lon Hare­wood told Pulse: "Every time East Side per­forms it must bring some­thing dif­fer­ent to en­ter­tain pa­trons. Pan is a lot more than just Panora­ma and pan. The stuff you can fuse the na­tion­al in­stru­ment is lim­it­less."

West­ern Stars Phil­har­mon­ics was al­so very en­ter­tain­ing, es­pe­cial­ly with its retro items like Spar­row's Lizard and Shad­ow's Alien. How­ev­er the band's pierce de re­sis­tance was the so­lo per­for­mance by its arranger Len "Boogsie" Sharpe of Wood in the Fire. San Fer­nan­do's NL­CB Fon­claire was al­so at the top of its game and seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty on Sat­ur­day to present spe­cial awards to vet­er­an pan peo­ple.

Wood­brook's CAL In­vaders played with flair, piz­zazz and gus­to and im­pressed with its trib­ute to 2016 Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Large) cham­pi­on Des­per­a­does, play­ing a col­lec­tion of Des­per­a­does' win­ning Panora­ma tunes of yes­ter­year.

Con­tin­u­ing to im­press with its dis­ci­pline and abil­i­ty to har­ness the en­er­gy of its young mu­si­cians, First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas of­fered a de­lec­table serv­ing of pan­man­ship and mu­sic. With a full moon over­head, its med­ley of oldies, in­clud­ed 10,000 French­men Du Du Ye­mi, Stat­ue, So­ca Bap­tist and Fete, giv­ing the crowd a per­fect send off just af­ter 10 pm. But, with shouts of "we want more," and peo­ple seem­ing re­luc­tant to leave, Su­per­novas oblig­ed with a lagniappe of Swal­low's Doh Stop dis Par­ty.

A date has not been set for the next edi­tion of Pan in de Coun­try­side, but the ten­ta­tive venue is Pointe-a-Pierre.

Steel­bands vie in Com­PAN­ions Fam­i­ly Day

Spear­head­ed by Julie Williams of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus and Denise Her­nan­dez of Massy Trinidad All Stars, Com­PAN­ions Steel­bands Sports & Fam­i­ly Day will be held on Sun­day. Fea­tur­ing steel­bands in non-mu­sic com­pe­ti­tion, among the band to have made it to the fi­nals are Ex­o­dus, Des­per­a­does, First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas, MHTL Star­lift, T&T De­fence Force, CAL In­vaders, Trinidad All Stars, Di­a­ton­ics, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps, Mod­er­naires, Clay­tones and Bel­mont 5th Di­men­sion.

Two of the at­trac­tions on the day will be the Dance By and the Scav­enger Hunt. Three 2016 cham­pi­ons have al­ready have been crowned, among them First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas, the Six-a� Side crick­et cham­pi­on, and win­ner of the Michael Lawrence Be­har­rysingh Chal­lenge Tro­phy. Sun­day's day of fun, ex­pect­ed to be­gin at 10 am, will be held at Con­tan­tine Park, Tu­na­puna.