Sean Nero

For the first time in 20 years, Sagi­cor Ex­o­dus will not be a fi­nal­ist in the Na­tion­al Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion.

Dur­ing Sun­day's semi­fi­nal round at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, Ex­o­dus' per­for­mance of Pan In De Mas, arranged by Pel­ham God­dard, earned the band a score of 255 points, not enough to en­sure its place in the fi­nal. Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove emerged tops among large con­ven­tion­al or­ches­tras, play­ing Pan Army, com­posed and arranged by Len (Boogsie) Sharpe.

Plac­ing 12th, Ex­o­dus was two places and two points be­hind bpRene­gades, which scored 257 points. Ren­der­ing Ken­neth Gup­py's arrange­ment of Bat­tle Zone, Rene­gades was the last of ten bands to qual­i­ty for the mu­si­cal clash on Feb­ru­ary 13 at the same venue. Based on re­sults pub­lished by Pan Trin­ba­go at 2.20 am yes­ter­day, the re­uni­fied So­lo Har­monites re­placed four-time Panora­ma cham­pi­on Ex­o­dus as the east zone heavy­weight, and ul­ti­mate­ly the lone or­ches­tra from the dis­trict in the fi­nals.

Har­monites found it­self in a three-way tie in fifth place with Wit­co Des­per­a­does and Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders, scor­ing 260 points. Har­monites played Yohan Pop­well's arrange­ment of Smooth Sail­ing by de Fos­to, while Des­per­a­does de­liv­ered Mu­si­cal Mag­num by Robert Greenidge. In­vaders of­fered Tell Dem, arranged by Ardin Her­bert. Speak­ing yes­ter­day, man­ag­er of Ex­o­dus, said he had had not seen the judges' com­ments and score sheet, but... "I am dev­as­tat­ed. I know from ex­pe­ri­ence what is a qual­i­ty per­for­mance. Ex­o­dus' per­for­mance was a qual­i­ty per­for­mance and well de­served to be in­side for the fi­nal. The feed­back that we got from very many peo­ple says that the per­for­mance was a great one. I'm numb by that fact (that Ex­o­dus is out), but the spir­it and will of the Ex­o­dus peo­ple will not be daunt­ed. We will get up, dust our­selves off and move on."

At the end of com­pe­ti­tion, Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove emerged tops among large con­ven­tion­al or­ches­tras, scor­ing 277 points, while Steel Xplo­sion from To­ba­go led the medi­um di­vi­sion with 270, with its tune-of-choice Rad­hi­ca, arranged by Carl­ton Alexan­der. Laven­tille Ser­e­naders ruled in the small band cat­e­go­ry, with Adrin Her­bert's in­ter­pre­ta­tion of This Melody Sweet.