Cherisse Moe

Al­though mas­ter de­sign­er Bri­an Mac Far­lane yes­ter­day bagged an im­pres­sive fifth con­sec­u­tive Band of the Year win, he is yet to take the record from vet­er­an mas ex­tra­or­dinare, Wayne Berke­ley, who has won the ti­tle six times. Soon af­ter his large band crossed the down­town stage on Car­ni­val Tues­day, Mac Far­lane told the me­dia if he copped the ti­tle again this year, he would have tak­en the record away from Berke­ley, 70, who, even af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke re­mains an in­te­gral part of Car­ni­val.

Mac Far­lane won the 2011 Band of the Year ti­tle with his pre­sen­ta­tion, Hu­man­i­ty: The Cir­cle of Life, which he dubbed his most cre­ative to date. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to David Lopez, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), Berke­ley re­mains the Band of the Year ti­tle hold­er hav­ing won from 1989-1994. Yes­ter­day, Lopez con­firmed that Mac Far­lane need­ed at least two more wins to be crowned Bands of the Year King. "The records are there and it shows that Wayne Berke­ley still holds the ti­tle. He won Band of the Year for six con­sec­u­tive years," he said.

"So, if Mac Far­lane wins next year, he will tie with Berke­ley for the ti­tle, and if he wins the year af­ter that, he will sur­pass Berke­ley, but he hasn't yet." Berke­ley, he said yes­ter­day, was "very ho­n­oured" that he still held the record and stat­ed it would be "tough" for his fel­low mas de­sign­er to sur­pass him any­time soon.

He said, "I'm glad he won but he has to come dif­fer­ent. It will be a hard task for him to beat my num­ber of wins and sur­pass my ti­tles. "I think mas needs se­ri­ous re­vamp­ing. I think it was ter­ri­ble yes­ter­day (Tues­day) and Mon­day was bad too.

"All the bands are the same from last year...on­ly biki­ni and beads. De­sign­ers have to try hard­er. They have to cut out all the feath­ers, feath­ers over­flow. They can use any kind of ma­te­ri­als but not feath­ers."

He added: "The on­ly band that looked good was Tri­ni Rev­ellers be­cause they brought some­thing dif­fer­ent." Yes­ter­day, Mac Far­lane said he was in­formed by a "re­li­able source" he did in fact take the ti­tle away from Berke­ley but promised he would "dou­ble check" his in­for­ma­tion.

Band of the Year Ti­tles

Berke­ley

1989-Heromyth

1990-1990

1991-Swan Lake

1992-Ti­tan­ic

1993-Strike up the Band

1994-Mi­rage

Mac Far­lane

2007-In­dia-The Sto­ry of Boyie

2008-Earth: Cries of De­spair-Wings of Hope

2009-Out of Africa: Her Peo­ple-Her Glo­ry-Her Tears

2010 - Res­ur­rec­tion: The Mas

2011-Hu­man­i­ty: Cir­cle of Life

Source: Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val Cal­en­dar