RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A con­stant flow of fans, hosts, and artistes came to­geth­er yes­ter­day to sup­port beloved pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo as he pur­sued his mis­sion to in­spire the next gen­er­a­tion, at­tempt­ing to set the Guin­ness World Record for the longest steel­pan-play­ing marathon.

Re­grel­lo, 27, be­gan his 30-hour per­for­mance at 6.28 am at WACK Ra­dio stu­dios in San Fer­nan­do, start­ing with a prayer from Ro­man Catholic priest Fa­ther Jayson Grell be­fore he per­formed Josh Groban’s hit You Raise Me Up. Through­out the day, sev­er­al artistes and hosts, in­clud­ing Er­rol Fa­bi­en, Kess Ram­sey, Aaron Fin­gal, Sheena “Aji­bo­la” Richard­son, An­cil Val­ley, BB Ser­e­naders, and Vaugh­nette Big­ford per­formed with Re­grel­lo to give moral sup­port.

Mon­i­tored by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, and time­keep­ers from the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion, Re­grel­lo played with a smile on his face and with strict ad­her­ence to the Guin­ness World Book guide­lines.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia be­fore start­ing, Re­grel­lo said, “Prayers and pam­pers were all I need­ed to com­plete this jour­ney. I have no idea why I am do­ing this. I am so ex­cit­ed. I do this for the an­tic­i­pa­tion, ex­cite­ment. It’s a huge task. It’s not about per­son­al mile­stones, glo­ry, or fame. It’s a huge mile­stone for steel­pan to el­e­vate it even fur­ther.”

Re­grel­lo, who has played the steel­pan since age three, re­flect­ed on the im­por­tance of the in­stru­ment.

“We don’t have a good idea of how amaz­ing this in­stru­ment is, and I think some­thing like this should be known. I think this is just the start of show­ing what is pos­si­ble with this in­stru­ment.”

He said the Guin­ness record feat would fea­ture 11 cat­e­gories of mu­sic, in­clud­ing gospel, world mu­sic, ca­lyp­so, chut­ney, and Bol­ly­wood. Re­grel­lo ex­plained the chal­lenge: “You have to play a song longer than two min­utes and can’t re­peat songs in four hours. We have a bunch of gen­res. We have guests com­ing in.”

Fa­ther Grell of Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church praised Re­grel­lo for be­ing an in­spi­ra­tion to young peo­ple. “You have to ad­mire Joshua’s de­ter­mi­na­tion,” he said. “This is about faith, cul­ture, and in­spir­ing oth­ers to dream big.”

Re­grel­lo’s moth­er, Kam­la Re­grel­lo, al­so shared her pride in his ded­i­ca­tion. She laud­ed her son for al­ways fol­low­ing his dreams and for be­ing a pos­i­tive in­spi­ra­tion for young peo­ple.

His grand­moth­er, Jacqui Koon How, said as a child, Re­grel­lo and his sib­lings would read sto­ries from the Guin­ness World Book of Records, and they no­ticed pan was miss­ing.

She al­so ex­pressed pride in her grand­son.

Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne al­so post­ed on Re­grel­lo’s quest, say­ing: “Young Joshua Re­grel­lo is now in the process of set­ting the of­fi­cial Guin­ness World Record for the longest time spent play­ing our na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment, the steel pan. Con­grat­u­la­tions in ad­vance to this in­no­va­tor for once again putting T&T on the map in a pos­i­tive light.”