Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Re­porter

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

The 2025 Road March Cham­pi­on may have giv­en a stel­lar per­for­mance at Eti­enne Charles’ show Road March 2. In a cast full of stars, on­ly one per­former re­al­ly and tru­ly turned the Winifred Al­fred au­di­to­ri­um at Queen’s Hall, St Ann's, in­to a fete.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned trum­peter, arranger, com­pos­er, and teacher Eti­enne Charles’ ex­am­i­na­tion of the Road March of Trinidad and To­ba­go is, ac­cord­ing to him, an over 20-year project. In a close to three-hour pro­duc­tion, he gave a mas­ter class on how to de­liv­er a full meal in show form.

The en­trée was a Jay­ron “Rawkus” Re­my-led in­ter­ac­tive seg­ment where, as the Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies po­si­tioned be­hind a set of turnta­bles, he played snip­pets of songs to whet the au­di­ence’s palate for the mu­si­cal treat planned for them. It was al­so the first in­di­ca­tion that the show was de­signed to be an in­ter­ac­tive pro­duc­tion and not to be en­joyed pas­sive­ly. The au­di­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion is equal­ly im­por­tant be­cause, through­out the show, Charles ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment at the num­ber of peo­ple sit­ting dur­ing the show. This con­cern, how­ev­er, does not mean the show wasn’t en­ter­tain­ing, be­cause it was. Im­mense­ly so. Time was mere­ly a con­cept dur­ing the pro­duc­tion as it flew by quick­ly. How­ev­er, there were some lulls.

As a show­case of the Road March, the song played most along the Car­ni­val pa­rade route, the con­cert was a re­al treat. Se­lec­tions moved from ob­scure to well-known, with ease. The first few se­lec­tions al­lowed the band to es­tab­lish them­selves in the show as its cen­tre. And Charles, ever the col­lab­o­ra­tor brought on-stage chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Lisa La Touche who is in­ter­est­ed in tap dance. It was she who reached out to him first for her project Trinidad and Tap Dance As Folk­lore. La Touche used her plat­form (lit­er­al­ly) to tap out a rhythm sec­tion to Lord In­vad­er’s Rum and Co­ca-Co­la and Miss Tourist from Lord Kitch­en­er (Ald­wyn Roberts)—a cheeky nod to her sta­tus as a Cana­di­an/New York­er per­form­ing lo­cal­ly for the first time.

Ker­nell Roberts, son of the late Lord Kitch­en­er, did his fa­ther proud with his vo­cals for The Road, Mas in Madi­son Square Gar­den and his dad­dy’s last road march, 1976’s Flag Woman. Roberts, ush­er­ing in an elite cadre of so­ca singers from Li­ma Cal­bio, Roger George, and Mar­vin Lewis. By then the crowd had ful­ly em­braced per­mis­sion to sing, with clear­ly danc­ing in their seats. A brave few ven­tured to the aisle when the mu­sic was too much to con­tain with­in their bod­ies and had to be re­leased phys­i­cal­ly through move­ment.

When MX Prime (Ig­nazio Thomas) came on stage, the au­di­ence was ex­pect­ing him to sing Full Ex­treme, the song by the Ul­ti­mate Re­jects that won the 2017 Road March. In­stead, he start­ed with his lat­est Fet­ing Cham­pi­on which in­clud­ed an “award” he pre­sent­ed to for­mer Miss Uni­verse Wendy Fitzwilliam mid-per­for­mance but did not con­nect with the au­di­ence. Thomas, own­er of one of the most pow­er­ful voic­es in so­ca was val­i­dat­ed when he did sing Full Ex­treme. The au­di­ence ate it up.

He ush­ered the way for Su­perBlue (Austin Lyons). The show was meant to ze­ro in on his con­tri­bu­tion to the Road March. He came out with an ex­tend­ed in­tro­duc­tion to 1993’s Hel­lo, arranged by Pel­ham God­dard to be­gin his nine-song set. The on­ly re­al hic­cup was Ly­on tem­porar­i­ly for­get­ting the lyrics to Jo­hh­ny King’s Na­ture’s Plan, but he re­cov­ered. Per­haps wise­ly, his daugh­ter Ter­ri Lyons joined him for the song So­ca Bap­tist and re­mained on stage through­out. Their in­ter­ac­tions to­geth­er were charm­ing, when Su­per’s voice fal­tered, hers soared.

Su­perBlue’s set end­ed on a high with his per­for­mance of Sig­nal to Lara, which was pre­ced­ed by a video mes­sage to the artiste from the star crick­eter him­self, thank­ing him for im­mor­tal­is­ing him in song. While Lara was not there, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was. The au­di­to­ri­um was ful­ly packed.

And then the show end­ed. Or so we thought. Through­out the night, some of the per­form­ers were in­tro­duced via video, a shot of them back­stage as they be­gan their walk to the stage. Or, in the case of Lyons, we had a video of him shar­ing his jour­ney to be­com­ing an artiste, and the sto­ry be­hind his name.

So when Charles start­ed in­tro­duc­ing in­di­vid­ual band mem­bers, we knew the drill, the show was over. Some had left their seats to try to beat the traf­fic, and then Machel Mon­tano ap­peared on-screen. He play­ful­ly ad­mon­ished the au­di­ence for think­ing Charles could do a Road March show with­out his in­clu­sion...and then ap­peared on stage to launch in­to one of his songs for 2025, Bet Meh. The au­di­ence went mad.

His sec­ond song may be what he will be adding to a fair­ly sub­stan­tial list of Road March­es. Pardy turned the au­di­to­ri­um in­to a fete. All man (and woman) were on their feet danc­ing. It may be ear­ly in the sea­son, but Mon­tano is a strong con­tender. And his sur­prise ap­pear­ance was the dessert in the meal Charles cooked up for us that night.

Men­tion must be made of the per­for­mance of Crit­i­cal Mas. They are a group of for­mer­ly in­car­cer­at­ed pris­on­ers turned per­form­ers that emerged from the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­gramme In­car­cer­at­ed Na­tions. Rom­mel “Pa­pa Mel” Leza­ma and Mega Bites were stand­outs from the group. Leza­ma has an amaz­ing voice and great stage pres­ence. Mega Bites’ ca­lyp­so, with its clear take­down of the many in­jus­tices with­in the lo­cal jus­tice sys­tem, would be a wel­come ad­di­tion to the Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

Eti­enne Charles Road March 2 was a thought­ful­ly cu­rat­ed pro­duc­tion, that demon­strat­ed not on­ly his vir­tu­os­i­ty as a per­former but his clear artis­tic vi­sion and strong so­cial con­science. But, per­haps, he should con­sid­er pre­sent­ing the show as a con­cert with­in a fete so that the au­di­ence would be free to dance through­out from the start.