Sean Nero

PCS Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra won in the con­ven­tion­al large band cat­e­go­ry, dur­ing Sat­ur­day night's com­bined Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nals at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, thus re­tain­ing their ti­tle and prov­ing that light­ning does, in­deed, strike twice. Play­ing a scin­til­lat­ing ren­di­tion of "Bat­tle Zone," com­posed and arranged by Ed­win Pouchet, the de­fend­ing "champs" from Tra­garete Road, Port-of-Spain, scored 291 points. Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove placed sec­ond with 284 points, play­ing "Pan Army," com­posed and arranged by Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, while Neal and Massy Trinidad All Star Steel cap­tured the third spot with 282 points. The band per­formed "Large Is Large," com­posed and arranged by Leon 'Smooth" Ed­wards. Mu­sic ac­tion among con­tes­tants in the medi­um con­ven­tion­al cat­e­go­ry saw To­ba­go's Steel Xplo­sion de­throne Cli­co Sforza­ta of Curepe. Steel Xplo­sion's fine ren­di­tion of "Rad­hi­ca," arranged by Carl­ton Alexan­der, earned the band the pre­mi­um spot with 280 points–22 points ahead of Sforza­ta.

Sforza­ta chose "Wild and Free" as its tune-of-choice, with arrange­ments by young New York-based An­dre White, but could tal­ly on­ly 258 points. Sec­ond place went to Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, with a score of 276.5 points, play­ing Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore's arrange­ment of De­stra Gar­cia's "Sur­ren­der." Pa­trons re­act­ed an­gri­ly when Val­ley Harps were called in fifth po­si­tion with a score of 268.5 points, for their in­ter­pre­ta­tion of "Bat­tle Zone," arranged by Michelle Hug­gins-Watts. Pan afi­ciona­dos were con­vinced that Val­ley Harps should have placed high­er. There were sim­i­lar scenes when NL­CB Buc­cooneers were slot­ted sixth for their pre­sen­ta­tion of "Sur­ren­der," arranged by Seion Gomez. Buc­cooneers scored 266.5 points. The eight-hour week­end pre­sen­ta­tion staged by Pan Trin­ba­go fea­tured a cast of 20 bands–ten in each cat­e­go­ry.

ABOVE: ?Pan­nists of PCS Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra go through the band's ren­di­tion of "Bat­tle Zone," which earned them the ti­tle of Panora­ma cham­pi­ons on Sat­ur­day night.

Eight seemed to be the lucky num­ber on the night, cit­ing that win­ners in both cat­e­gories ap­peared be­fore the re­spec­tive ad­ju­di­ca­tion pan­el in that po­si­tion and ul­ti­mate­ly se­cured vic­to­ry. Tak­ing the stage around 1.47 am, Sil­ver Stars de­liv­ered a made-for-tele­vi­sion per­for­mance with all of Hol­ly­wood's nu­ances, and con­vinced mu­sic ad­ju­di­ca­tors why (Sil­ver Stars) should hold on to the $1 mil­lion first prize. Re­sults pub­lished by Pan Trin­ba­go show that the judges agreed, and award­ed Sil­ver Stars suf­fi­cient points that al­lowed mu­si­cal "Brigadier" Pouchet and his troops to force Petrotrin Phase II Pan Groove's pan army to sur­ren­der and take com­mand of the Sa­van­nah. Field­ing the most lethal mu­si­cal com­man­dos and boast­ing the best ar­tillery, Sil­ver Stars set­tled Phase II by cap­tur­ing the ti­tle by a sev­en-point mar­gin.

Duke Street-based Neal and Massy Trindad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra filled the spot­light to prove one point: Large is Large. But even so, the ad­ju­di­ca­tors felt that boast was most de­serv­ing of a band from West Port-of-Spain–Sil­ver Stars. BpTT Rene­gades tied with Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders in fourth place with 274 points. Led by Ever­ald "Red­man" Wat­son, Rene­gades per­formed "Bat­tle Zone," arranged by Ken­neth Gup­py, while In­vaders of­fered Ar­den Her­bert's arrange­ment of "Tell Dem." Her­bert and Ri­car­do Jones col­lab­o­rat­ed on this com­po­si­tion. Hopes that TCL Group Skif­fle Bunch would have bro­ken the three-and-a-half-decade-old jinx by re­turn­ing Panora­ma glo­ry to the south­land did not ma­te­ri­alise. Even with its sat­is­fac­to­ry sup­ply of G-Pans (Gen­e­sis) in­stru­ments Skif­fle Bunch dropped from third in the se­mi-fi­nal to sixth on fi­nal night, scor­ing 271 points with "Pan on Fire," arranged by Kei­th Sal­cedo.

RBTT Re­demp­tion Sound Set­ters were an­oth­er large band that opt­ed to play "Pan on Fire," but it seemed that the judges want­ed more fire­works in the band's mu­si­cal no­ta­tion rather than the elab­o­rate fire­works dis­play dur­ing the band's pre­sen­ta­tion. Play­ing Yohan Pop­well's arrange­ment of "Smooth Sail­ing." sung by de Fos­to (Win­ston Scar­bor­ough) the leg­endary So­lo Har­monites marked their re­turn to the Panora­ma fi­nals ty­ing with Wit­co Des­per­a­does, which per­formed "Mu­si­cal Mag­num," com­posed and arranged by Robert Greenidge. Proud of its re­turn to the Panora­ma stage, NL­CB Fon­claire, in the eyes of the judges, did not cre­ate enough im­pact to se­cure a plac­ing high­er than tenth for "Rewind," arranged by Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore.

The band scored 260 points.