Sean Nero

Pa­trons at­tend­ing Sat­ur­day's sea­son pre­miere of Parang and Steel, staged by reign­ing Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on PCS Ni­tro­gen Sil­ver Stars Steel Or­ches­tra at its Tra­garete Road, New­town, pa­n­yard, were not bereft of qual­i­ty en­ter­tain­ment. Sil­ver Stars and its mu­si­cal friends seemed to thrill the large au­di­ence by de­liv­er­ing reper­toires that had the right mu­si­cal shad­ing. The star cast in­clud­ed Baron (Tim­o­thy Watkins), parang group Fuego Caribeno, gospe­lyp­son­ian Sean Daniell, sin­gle pan band St James Tripo­lians and DJ Remixx. Their qual­i­ty ren­der­ings brought pa­trons to their feet and kept them there as they danced the night away. Cul­ture lovers were called up­on to sing, too, and did so to the open de­light of each oth­er. Their vo­cal flair was wit­nessed dur­ing the per­for­mances of Baron and Daniel.

Both artistes, dur­ing their re­spec­tive per­for­mances on the night's play­bill, turned the au­di­ence in­to a mass choir. The high­ly-an­tic­i­pat­ed week­end pro­duc­tion, now in its 20th year, was much more than just a Yule­tide mu­sic show­case. Alvin Daniell, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Ma­jor and Mi­nor Pro­duc­tions, in­tro­duced the mass­es to au­dio ver­sions of Panora­ma 2011 ca­lyp­soes co-writ­ten by Sil­ver Stars leader Ed­win Pouchet and him­self. The se­lec­tions were: Wake Up vo­calised by for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Denyse Plum­mer and It's Show­time! sung by Anselm Dou­glas. The pub­lish­ing of these mu­sic items did not spark much de­bate among pa­trons about which dit­ty the cham­pi­on band should chose as its tune of choice to de­fend its ti­tle.

In their view, when­ev­er Sil­ver Stars took the spot­light it's show­time.

St James Tripo­lians cre­at­ed a Car­ni­va­lesque scene as the band roved the pa­n­yard. Pa­trons were chip­ping and wav­ing flags. Ian Welch, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, PCS Ni­tro­gen, Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Karen Mc­Don­ald and In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Malay Mishra were spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests of Sil­ver Stars at Parang and Steel. They, along with the ca­pac­i­ty au­di­ence, were treat­ed to a de­light­ful mix of moods from the host band which played mu­sic of yes­ter­day as well as to­day's hits, leav­ing parang group Fuego Caribeno to in­ject the larg­er share of heart-warm­ing parang num­bers to her­ald the scin­til­lat­ing five-week mu­sic se­ries–Parang and Steel.