Seemed like Christ­mas in Sep­tem­ber last Sat­ur­day evening as you en­tered Li­on’s Cul­tur­al Cen­tre in Wood­brook. Up­on en­try, pa­trons were greet­ed with a shot of Pump­kin Spice, a blend­ed al­co­holic Christ­mas bev­er­age by Ru­by’s Cock­tails, to put you in the right mood for reign­ing na­tion­al parang cham­pi­on Vo­ces Jovenes host­ing Start De Parang.

An an­nu­al event in it’s sev­enth year, Start De Parang fea­tures dif­fer­ent no­table parang groups from across T&T. This year fea­tured bands Los Alum­nos De San Juan, La Fa­mil­ia De Par­ran­da, La Fa­mil­ia de Car­mona y Ami­gos, Los Sonidos, Los Ruiseñores and host and cham­pi­on Vo­ces Jovenes, to name a few.

Pa­trons were “bai­lan­do con bel­la mu­si­ca”, danc­ing to the beau­ti­ful mu­sic that filled the cul­tur­al cen­tre all evening long. The show start­ed prompt­ly at 7 pm with youth band La Fa­mil­ia De Par­ran­da.

As youths do, they remixed the tra­di­tion­al parang band in­stru­ments adding the sax­o­phone, played by Nicholas Good­ing and Matthew Newal­lo, in­to the mix cre­at­ing a dif­fer­ent, yet wel­com­ing tone to their reper­toire of tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas-parang se­lec­tions.

Vo­ces Jovenes had the crowd flock­ing stage side to get a clos­er view as the TV mon­i­tors around the venue could on­ly repli­cate a live show so much. Mu­si­cal di­rec­tor and lead vo­cal­ist Can­dice Cor­bie cap­tured the au­di­ence’s imag­i­na­tion with her per­for­mance of Cele­bre­mos Es­ta Noche, and was al­so ho­n­oured with a plaque for her 18 years of ser­vice and con­tri­bu­tion to the band, as arranger, com­pos­er, lead vo­cal­ist, as well as its mu­si­cal di­rec­tor.

But, it was when the last band, Los Alum­nos De San Juan, came to the stage the dance floor stage side be­came over­whelmed with en­am­oured danc­ing pa­trons. Those who weren’t on the dance floor stage side danced in their seats as Ali­cia Jag­gasar and her icon­ic band turned up “el calor” (the heat).

A won­der­ful evening in true tra­di­tion­al Tri­ni Christ­mas style cul­mi­nat­ed with the clas­sic melodies from spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guest band Joey Lewis Or­ches­tra.