An­ge­lo Mar­celle

Tem­po tele­vi­sion sta­tion cel­e­brat­ed its birth­day in fine style at Six Flags Great Ad­ven­ture Park in Jack­son, New Jer­sey, on Ju­ly 9, and T&T was well rep­re­sent­ed as ev­i­denced by the sea of red, white and black. The sta­tion has been host­ing the event, The Caribbean Sum­mer Con­cert Se­ries, since its first broad­cast­six years ago. My jour­ney to Six Flags took an in­ter­est­ing turn, as my pre­arranged mode of trans­porta­tion be­came un­avail­able. I was left in a quandary as to how to get to the event from Yonkers in New York. Even­tu­al­ly I was giv­en the con­tact num­ber of a Trinida­di­an called Browsee, who had hired a bus to at­tend the event. The bus left from Brook­lyn, and it was likeI nev­er left the shores of T&T. It was a bus load of Amer­i­can Tri­nis, food ga­lore, gal­lons of drinks, beau­ti­ful women, and most im­por­tant­ly a tol­er­ant dri­ver who had no idea how Tri­nis be­haved when on an ex­cur­sion. There was danc­ing and frol­ick­ing from the mo­ment the bus left, to its even­tu­al ar­rival at the theme park.

The con­cert be­gan at 5 pm at the North­ern Star Are­na be­fore a very small au­di­ence. The first per­former on stage was six-year-old singer De­vyn Tyson, who did a few so­ca trib­utes. She was even­tu­al­ly joined by New York-based Lyrikal. The two did their col­lab­o­rat­ed item, The Is­lands. Lyrikal then per­formed one ofhis 2011 so­ca dit­ties, Nut­tin Un­dah. It was a bit sur­pris­ing, at least to me, that he did not do Ra­ma­jay, which re­ceived sig­nif­i­cant­ly more air­play dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. Next in line was so­ca artiste Patch, who has made a name for him­self in the re­cent past, and is no stranger to con­tro­ver­sy. In 2009, he col­lab­o­rat­ed with mu­sic pro­duc­er/mu­si­cian Shawn Mas­t­a­mind Noel on the chut­ney so­ca hit, Rum and Roti. The two made it to the chut­ney fi­nals that year. But since then they have been ac­cus­ing each oth­er of steal­ing the rights to the song.

In 2011 Yan­kee Boy, who is based in New York City, al­so col­lab­o­rat­ed with Patch on the song Head Nice. Patch was the guest act on the song dur­ing the 2011 Car­ni­val sea­son. Since then Patch had not in­vit­ed Yan­kee Boy to sing with him at in­ter­na­tion­al events. Dur­ing Patch's per­for­mance of Head Nice, I man­aged to catch up with both Yan­kee Boy and Shawn Noel, who were sit­ting to­geth­er in the stands watch­ing the per­for­mance. While some of their col­leagues were vis­i­bly up­set at the turn of events, Yan­kee Boy re­mained silent and just laughed at the en­tire sit­u­a­tion. The ac­tion re­al­ly start­ed to heat up when Iw­er George (De Boss) came on stage. Al­though he has been singing the same line-up of songs, in the very same or­der, with the same ques­tions be­ing asked dur­ing the per­for­mance for the last four years, Iw­er ha­sun­doubt­ed­ly proven him­self to be an en­ter­tain­er ex­tra­or­di­naire.

In ad­di­tion to his usu­al wa­ter an­tics, he dis­mount­ed the stage while singing his 2K11 hit, Come to Me, dis­ap­peared in­to the bel­ly of the crowd, and com­mand­ed them to di­vide in­to halves. When he sang the cho­rus, every­one came crash­ing in­to the him, while throw­ing pow­der and wa­ter in the air. But the high­light of the evening was Kes the Band, which hit the stage just be­fore 9 pm. Kees has been im­prov­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last three years and is def­i­nite­ly be­com­ing a force to be reck­oned with on the in­ter­na­tion­al scale. Since Kees added dancers to his reper­toire, his fan base has seen a tremen­dous in­crease. Some­fansat the venue felt that Kees and his band­may be the ones to grab T&T's first Gram­my Award. Al­so per­form­ing on the evening were Aaron Fresh, Tall­pree, Ben­jai, Rik­ki Jai, Skin­ny Fab­u­lous and Shag­gy & Rayvon.