Cherisse Moe

Hus­band and wife mas­mak­ers Ron­nie and Car­o­line McIn­tosh were de­ter­mined to score a hat-trick and cap­ture the cov­et­ed Medi­um Band of the Year ti­tle.

They put on quite an im­pres­sive show on Car­ni­val Tues­day at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. The band won the pres­ti­gious ti­tles in 2008 and again in 2009, with their por­tray­als, De Gulf and Bakkanal, re­spec­tive­ly. Ti­tled Trib­utes, the band's C2K10 pre­sen­ta­tion paid homage to such leg­endary mas pi­o­neers, among them George Bai­ley, Stephen Lee He­ung, Wayne Berke­ley, Ed­mund and Lil Hart and Pe­ter Min­shall. Ac­cord­ing to the band's Web site, "Trib­ute will ho­n­our the men whose ded­i­ca­tion to the mas form has made Car­ni­val what it is to­day, the 'greats,' who stepped in­to our his­to­ry and took Car­ni­val from the days of mas on the truck to the streets."

With a kalei­do­scope of colour, the var­i­ous sec­tions of the medi­um all-in­clu­sive band ex­plod­ed on­to the sa­van­nah just be­fore 4 pm. Some of the sec­tions in­clud­ed Africa, Hum­ming Bird, We Kin­da Peo­ple, Fire­Bird and Won­ders of the Buc­coo Reef. What al­so made the band unique was the fact that 90 per cent of its mas­quer­aders were women, a fac­tor which, no doubt, gave the male mas lovers great en­cour­age­ment to play. "On­ly love­ly ladies in this band," said one rev­eller yes­ter­day."I play­ing again with Ron­nie and Caro for sure!"

His sen­ti­ments were echoed by a few of his friends, who all en­joyed the eye can­dy. Spec­ta­tors, who lined the venue to wit­ness the colour­ful street pa­rade, did not seem af­fect­ed by the swel­ter­ing heat, as they jumped, waved and palanced to so­ca's sweet sounds. The song of choice for many mas bands was the pop­u­lar track, Palance, sung by ra­dio per­son­al­i­ties Ja­son Williams (JW) and Blaze. Not to be out­done, even for­eign­ers got in on the ac­tion, show­ing that they, too, can palance and have fun in the sun. "I love Trinidad! So many beau­ti­ful women! I com­ing back again for Car­ni­val next year," de­clared Robert, a Cana­di­an.