Last week­end was a rainy one but things got re­al­ly hot on Sat­ur­day at the Stumped cool­er fete which was held at the Queen's Park Oval in St Clair.

What piqued most pa­trons' in­ter­est was the first ap­pear­ance for Car­ni­val 2017 by so­ca su­per­star Machel Mon­tano, drop­ping his new sin­gle Take It Down: How would it mea­sure up to hot Road March con­tender Full Ex­treme by MX Prime and Ul­ti­mate Re­jects?

Re­ports in­di­cate that Mon­tano's song is a creep­er while Full Ex­treme con­tin­ues to be the dy­namo at fetes in these ear­ly days of the fes­ti­val.

Among the oth­er per­for­mances on the night was reign­ing In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Voice.

The Car­ni­val scene con­tin­ues to sim­mer this week­end with a num­ber of big all-in­clu­sive fetes on, as well as the open­ing of ca­lyp­so tents and the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.

Fol­low­ing a pre­miere on Sun­day at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Sapa), Klas­sic Ru­so ca­lyp­so tent had its home base pre­miere at Port-of-Spain City Hall last night.

This tent fea­tures some heavy hit­ters in ca­lyp­so in­clud­ing All Rounder, his daugh­ters La­dy Won­der and Shirlaine Hen­drick­son, reign­ing Hu­mourous Ca­lyp­so Monarch Bro Ebony, for­mer na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch fi­nal­ist Bri­an Lon­don, Con­tender, Crazy, Bro Ebony, Bri­an Lon­don, Man­child and Dr Will B.

The tra­di­tion­al Ari­ma pre­miere of Ka­lyp­so Re­vue ca­lyp­so tent will be held tonight at the Velo­drome.

This tent boasts bards like reign­ing na­tion­al ca­lyp­so monarch De­von Seale, for­mer mon­archs Chalk­dust and Sug­ar Aloes, Na­tion Build­ing Monarch Skatie, Nin­ja, Alana Sin­nette, Michelle Hen­ry, Nicole Greaves, Fal­co, Saint Nick, Mar­lon Ed­wards and many more.

The tent will be at home base, SWW­TU Hall, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain to­mor­row night, and at Sapa on Sun­day.

Tonight the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty is hold­ing its much-an­tic­i­pat­ed Gate­way to the World all-in­clu­sive at the south ter­mi­nal of the old Pi­ar­co Air­port.

Mu­sic will come from Kes The Band, Roy Cape All Stars with Blaxx, Tizzy and Ri­car­do Drue, Kar­ma The Band, David Rud­der, Voice, Ru­pee, Or­lan­do Oc­tave and more.

The Out in South Cool­er Ex­pe­ri­ence is al­so tak­ing place tonight at Sapa, cor­ner of Todd Street and Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way, San Fer­nan­do.

The an­nu­al Old Hi­lar­i­ans all-in­clu­sive par­ty comes of age to­mor­row evening, with its 21st edi­tion (Cheers to 21) be­ing held at the Court­yard of Bish­op Anstey High School on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

Over the years, this event has grown in pop­u­lar­i­ty not for just of­fer­ing su­perb mu­sic but for its unique culi­nary choic­es, like stewed horse and gheera pig tail.

Help­ing the girls cel­e­brate their mile­stone will be Kes the Band, Roy Cape All Stars, Blaxx, Ri­car­do Drue and Tizzy, Ul­ti­mate Re­jects, fea­tur­ing MX Prime, and DJs Ali­cia D Duchess and Jug­glers.

On the top­ic of mu­sic, the best can be en­joyed to­mor­row evening when JM­PV Pro­duc­tions holds Roots...D Sto­ry Con­tin­ues at Un­der the Trees, The Nor­mandie, St Ann's, from 5 pm.

Head­ling this one-of-a-kind pro­duc­tion will be David Rud­der, Su­perBlue, 3 Canal, Roger George, and Pel­ham God­dard & Roots.

The open­ing of ca­lyp­so tents is very much in the thick of things to­mor­row as Kaiso Kar­a­van will pre­miere its sea­son at La Joya, EMR, St Joseph.

The cast in­cludes Singing Francine, De Fos­to, John­ny King, Stinger, Car­di­nal, Mba, Eu­nice Pe­ters, Singing So­nia and Dirty Cur­ty.

An­oth­er of the week­end's big fetes is Sun­day's Wan­der­lust–Taste the World (UWI Fete) to be held at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

Draw­ing cards at this par­ty in­clude the per­for­mances by Machel Mon­tano and his full band, Roy Cape All Stars and Dil-e-Nadan, not to men­tion the ex­quiste cui­sine from places like Africa, Chi­na, France, In­dia, Italy and Mex­i­co.

In Panora­ma news, judg­ing for Sin­gle Pan steel­bands was sched­uled to be com­plet­ed last evening with the re­sults be­ing re­leased this morn­ing at 10 am, at Port-of-Spain City Hall.

The fi­nal of the Na­tion­al Sin­gle Pan com­pe­ti­tion is sup­posed to be held on Sun­day, at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, at 4 pm.

Pre­lim­i­nary com­pe­ti­tion for Small, Medi­um and Large con­ven­tion­al steel­bands com­mences on Mon­day evening for East, To­ba­go and South Cen­tral Zone bands, re­spec­tive­ly, in their pa­n­yards. Com­pe­ti­tion con­tin­ues night­ly next week.

Live mu­sic on theroad for Street Par­ty

It is sup­posed to be a se­cret and sur­prise but live mu­sic re­turns to the streets of Port-of-Spain for Car­ni­val 2017.

The last band to pro­vide live mu­sic for mas­quer­aders on the road, re­placed by DJs and mas­sive sound sys­tems, was Triveni, play­ing for Tri­ni Rev­ellers, and this is sore­ly missed by the mas-play­ing throng.

Mas­quer­aders are ex­pect­ed to have their fill of live mu­sic when Street Par­ty hits the streets on Car­ni­val Mon­day from 3 pm.

Pulse found out that some of the prin­ci­pals be­hind this wel­come and ex­cit­ing project are David Rud­der, Eti­enne Charles, Le­ston Paul and De­sign­er.

Pulse al­so learned that the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment for Street Par­ty will be made on Sun­day evening when Charles stages the world pre­miere of Car­ni­val: The Sound of a Peo­ple at Queen's Hall.

This evening, at 5.30 pm, he is al­so hold­ing a pre-con­cert lec­ture at The­atre 1 of UTT, housed in the Na­pa build­ing on Keate Street, Port-of-Spain.

Charles' Car­ni­val: the Sound of a Peo­ple is an opus that con­tin­ues his pen­chant for the rit­u­als of his home­land, com­posed af­ter four months of trav­el and deep re­search across T&T to un­earth the arts of Car­ni­val that high­light the vivid and vast el­e­ments of our cul­ture and his­to­ry.

What he dis­cov­ers is that Car­ni­val tra­di­tions alive and thriv­ing in ar­eas with strong com­mu­ni­ties and fam­i­lies.

Art forms such as the Tam­boo Bam­boo, Stick Fight­ing, Tam­brin, Jab Jab, Blue Dev­ils, Black In­di­an, Moko Jumbie, Fan­cy Sailor, Dame Lor­raine, Steel and Iron Bands con­tin­ue to grow and evolve af­ter be­ing passed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion through the oral tra­di­tion.

At this evening's pub­lic lec­ture, pre­sent­ed by Mon­lo Mu­sic Ltd and the Cal­abash Foun­da­tion for the Arts, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), Charles will give stu­dents and the pub­lic in­sight in­to his re­search which in­clud­ed hours of video and au­dio record­ings.

Ad­mis­sion to the lec­ture is free with lim­it­ed seat­ing. Tick­ets to the con­cert will al­so be avail­able at the lec­ture.

Young peo­ple to sing ex­tem­pore

The fi­nal of the sec­ond an­nu­al Ju­nior Ex­tem­po Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion, pre­sent­ed by Friends of the Youth of T&T (FY­OTT), is sched­uled to take place at the Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um, Val­sayn on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 9, from 10 am.

De­fend­ing cham­pi­on is St Bene­dict's Col­lege stu­dent Ke­van Cal­liste, grand­son of vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Black Stal­in (Dr Leroy Cal­liste), who won the ti­tle at the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion last year at the SWW­TU Hall, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.

FY­OTT con­duct­ed a work­shop for in­tend­ed par­tic­i­pants at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do on Wednes­day and the pre­lim­i­nary round of judg­ing be­gan yes­ter­day at the Po­lice Re­tirees' As­so­ci­a­tion, River­side Plaza An­nex, Besson Street, Port-of-Spain, for con­tes­tants in the North/East re­gion.

Pre­lim­i­nary judg­ing con­tin­ues on to­day, Fri­day, for con­tes­tants in the South/Cen­tral re­gion, at the Pleas­antville Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, San Fer­nan­do. Start­ing time on both days is 10 am.

Pa­tron of the event, Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, last year not­ed it was the first oc­ca­sion on which sec­ondary school stu­dents were par­tic­i­pat­ing in "an im­por­tant quin­tes­sen­tial fea­ture of our art form."

He said the com­pe­ti­tion pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the younger gen­er­a­tion to learn the im­por­tance of per­se­ver­ance, vi­sion, and be­lief in self, in or­der to ac­com­plish great things.

"We un­der­es­ti­mate the im­pact ex­tem­po has on the world," he con­tend­ed, adding this was the on­ly coun­try in the world this genre of the art form was alive and well. He re­ferred to ex­tem­po as "the gayelle of ca­lyp­so," in which words and mu­sic were used as op­posed to the sticks used in the stick-fight­ing gayelle.

Car­ni­val con­cert guests

Car­ni­val: The Sound of a Peo­ple will fea­ture Charles on trum­pet and per­cus­sion; God­win Louis (al­to and so­pra­no sax­o­phones); Chris­t­ian Sands (pi­ano); Alex Wintz (gui­tar); Luques Cur­tis (bass); and, John Davos (drums). Spe­cial guests will be:

Damien Whiskey | Mid­night Rob­ber

Touch D Sky | Moko Jumbies

Ronald & Ronal­do Al­fred | Orig­i­nal Jab Jabs

An­der­son Patrick | Black In­di­an

Sweet Fin­gers Tam­brin Band

Lawrence 'Wax' Crooks | vi­o­lin

Carl James | tri­an­gle

Charles Phillip, Prince Williams & Japhet Al­man | tam­brin

Ever­ald 'Red­man' Wat­son, Li­on Os­una & Kay­o­de Charles | per­cus­sion

David 'Acid' Brown | Kalin­da/Stick Fight­er

Bertam 'Bud' To­by | Kalin­da & Tam­boo Bam­boo Vo­cals

Dave Williams | Dame Lor­raine

Laven­tille Rhythm Sec­tion

Earl Rod­ney | steel­pan

2001 Jab Mo­lassies | Blue Dev­ils & Bis­cuit Tins