Wes­ley Gib­bings

BP Rene­gades emerged vic­to­ri­ous at Sat­ur­day’s Panora­ma Large Con­ven­tion­al Fi­nals and, in the process, joined Des­per­a­does as one of the two most suc­cess­ful steel­bands in the his­to­ry of Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tions with 12 wins apiece.

Un­der the wild­ly-wav­ing ba­ton of arranger, Du­vone Stew­art, the band had held steady in first place through the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, se­mi-fi­nals, and Sat­ur­day’s fi­nal, staged at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port of Spain. A first-place prize of one mil­lion dol­lars is now en route to the band’s bank ac­count.

Plac­ing sec­ond, three points be­hind at 280, Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus had them­selves owned the run­ners-up slot through­out the en­tire com­pe­ti­tion. Mean­while, Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars, it­self four points be­hind Ex­o­dus, had risen through the ranks, hav­ing placed sev­enth and ninth in the run-up to the event.

A gen­er­al­ly ef­fi­cient flow of the 13 com­pet­ing bands came af­ter a close to one hour late start as a re­sult of clean-ups and a “se­cu­ri­ty sweep” fol­low­ing the Ju­nior Pa­rade of Bands staged ear­li­er.

It was not the first time this had hap­pened, and some dis­grun­tled pa­trons who made it through slow-mov­ing lines ap­plaud­ed weak­ly when Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent, Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, apolo­get­i­cal­ly vowed it would nev­er hap­pen again. She promised that the Panora­ma Fi­nals would, from next year, be the sole event at the venue on Car­ni­val Sat­ur­day.

When Pro­man Star­lift struck the first note at 8.22 pm, the Grand Stand was about half-filled with hun­dreds of pa­trons still out­side. It was how­ev­er not long be­fore the stand be­came near ful­ly oc­cu­pied and the North Stand reached close to half ca­pac­i­ty.

The fi­nal Shell In­vaders flour­ish, which put them in fourth place on 275 points, came at 2.13 am Sun­day. By that time, much of the crowd had dis­ap­peared af­ter Rene­gades ex­it­ed the stage. Their loss. There were treats to be served by the two bands that fol­lowed.

It was an evening of fire­works—not on­ly from the mor­tars bear­ing colour­ful ex­plo­sives— but al­so from a line-up of bands in­tent on es­tab­lish­ing strong bona fides in one of the most keen­ly con­test­ed Panora­ma fi­nals ever.

Be­yond the top three and down to tenth-placed First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas, just one point sep­a­rat­ed each band. The pan­el of judges in­clud­ing Corinne Soo Ping Chow, Dr Roger Hen­ry, Joan­na Rag­bir, Michelle Dowrich, Richard Pierre, and Stephanie Pow­er were not as­signed a sim­ple task.

For, as ex­pect­ed when you line up 13 of the best steel­bands in the world on an evening of high ten­sion, hair­line mar­gins can greet com­peti­tors in­tent on pulling out all stops in an at­tempt to earn top ho­n­ours.

It was fit­ting recog­ni­tion of 60 years of the an­nu­al steel­band com­pe­ti­tion, and the 58th stag­ing of the event.

Though the judges reg­is­tered gaps through points, an ebul­lient au­di­ence wit­nessed keen go­ing with pan, on­stage the­atrics, py­rotech­nics, fire breathers, moko jumbies, flag men and women, tas­sa, and NL­CB Fon­claire even brought tam­boo bam­boo play­ers on stage.

Play­ing a Dan­té Pan­tin in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Might Spar­row’s Witch Doc­tor, com­posed by the late Wins­ford Devine and ex­ca­vat­ed from the archives of 1976, Star­lift clear­ly meant to kick off the pro­ceed­ings on a high. They did not dis­ap­point with a per­for­mance that, on­ly be­cause of the stiff op­po­si­tion, land­ed them in twelfth place.

Then, as if to sig­nal se­ri­ous busi­ness on the heels of Star­lift’s re­sound­ing per­for­mance, the ar­rang­ing tri­umvi­rate com­pris­ing Marc Brooks, Kendall Williams, and Odie Franklin led Skif­fle through a mu­si­cal ad­ven­ture play­ing the late Black Stal­in’s Bun Dem.

Skif­fle was one of three bands pre­sent­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the 36-year-old clas­sic—the oth­ers be­ing NL­CB Buc­cooneers and Shell In­vaders. Rene­gades kept the Black Stal­in theme rolling with Black Man Come Out To Par­ty and earned ad­di­tion­al cheers when Pat­sy Cal­liste, wife of the late bard, emerged en­er­get­i­cal­ly on­stage and was greet­ed by a typ­i­cal­ly an­i­mat­ed Stew­art.

HAD­CO Phase II Pan Groove, un­der the ba­ton of Len “Boogsie” Sharpe how­ev­er turned at­ten­tion to far more con­tem­po­rary fare play­ing young so­ca phe­nom Aaron Dun­can’s We Come Out To Par­ty—penned by Sharpe, with vic­to­ry in mind.

Not so quick, ap­peared to be the re­sponse of Massy Trinidad All Stars with Stage on Fire—pro­duced by Mar­cellin Mu­sic, fea­tur­ing the voice of Dile­na Di­a­mond. Ear­ly crit­i­cism over their tune of choice had been prompt­ly ad­dressed at the se­mi-fi­nals with the enig­mat­ic arranger Leon “Smooth” Ed­wards ap­ply­ing his cus­tom­ary flair. They placed fifth.

The lone To­ba­go band, NL­CB Buc­cooneers, set out to ad­dress a ninth-place po­si­tion at the semis and upped its game with the Black Stal­in par­ty stan­dard.

Arranger, Seion Gomez, is no slouch when it comes to rhyth­mic in­no­va­tion and it showed on the evening, as his band ex­plored the song that ruled the roost this sea­son, al­beit through the de­vices of de­ter­mined front-run­ners, BP Rene­gades.

Much was al­so ex­pect­ed of Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus which, un­der arranger Ter­rence “BJ” Mar­celle had been hav­ing its best sea­son in many years oc­cu­py­ing the sec­ond place spot at both the pre­lim­i­nar­ies and semis.

The Tu­na­puna-based band kept the ear­li­er tem­po up with a mem­o­rable ren­di­tion of the con­tro­ver­sial 1976 hit Tourist Leg­go by An­tiguan ca­lyp­son­ian King Short Shirt who, in­ci­den­tal­ly, ob­serves his 80th birth­day on Feb­ru­ary 28. The An­tiguan con­nec­tion was al­so ce­ment­ed through the work of drill mas­ter, Khan Cordice.

NL­CB Fon­claire brought things back to 2023 when they fol­lowed with Voice’s Long Live So­ca, arranged by Dar­ren Shep­pard who is well known in Toron­to pan cir­cles. Fon­claire in­creased its rat­ings be­tween the pre­lim­i­nar­ies and the semis and set its sights at climb­ing the lad­der even fur­ther.

Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars had cho­sen Olatun­ji’s En­gine Room but stut­tered in ear­li­er com­pe­ti­tion. The band was how­ev­er on full rev’ short­ly af­ter mid­night and skipped six places to what sup­port­ers con­sid­ered to be their ap­pro­pri­ate place in the top three.

Play­ing Mi­cal Te­ja’s Hall of Fame, T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps brought on stage a young tas­sa play­er to lead their clos­ing crescen­do to the cheers of the au­di­ence. It took them to eighth place.

BP Rene­gades en­sured that a sub­stan­tial crowd re­mained near the end at 1.10 a.m. and the crowd dwin­dled in time for First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas’ res­olute, repack­aged ver­sion of De­stra Gar­cia’s Ju­bi­la­tion. The per­for­mance by a young team raised their over­all points tal­ly, but not enough to make a sig­nif­i­cant dent in the out­come, as they placed tenth.

Those who left be­fore the end, would have been dis­ap­point­ed to have missed Shell In­vaders’ in­spir­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Bun Dem. It earned them their third third-place achieve­ment at Panora­ma. The morn­ing brought en­er­getic and mem­o­rable clo­sure to Panora­ma 2023.

1. BP Rene­gades - 283

2. Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus - 280

3. Nu­trien Sil­ver Stars - 276

4. Shell In­vaders - 275

5. Massy Trinidad All Stars - 274

6. HAD­CO Phase II Pan Groove – 273

7. NL­CB Buc­cooneers – 273

8. T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps – 272

9. Des­per­a­does – 271

10. First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas – 270

11. NL­CB Fon­claire – 268

12. Pro­man Star­lift – 267

13. Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Skif­fle - 265