Kalain Ho­sein

Vet­er­an mas band­leader Michael “Big Mike” An­toine yes­ter­day threat­ened to pull out of next year’s Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties af­ter what he said was the dis­re­spect met­ed out to his band, Lega­cy, at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

“You will not see me for Car­ni­val on this stage ever, ever, ever, in life again,” An­toine an­nounced as Lega­cy even­tu­al­ly crossed the stage, as he not­ed that an­oth­er band had been al­lowed to skip the queue wait­ing to cross the Sa­van­nah stage in front of his band.

“There are some bands called ‘pres­tige’ bands. They’re do­ing what they want. They cut me off. I was be­hind Lost Tribe, and there are cer­tain bands com­ing through all over, bussing the line.”

The band An­toine was ref­er­enc­ing is Yu­ma, which had mul­ti­ple sec­tions to cross the main stage.

He point­ed out that he im­me­di­ate­ly went to NCC or­gan­is­ers, who said they’d pull the of­fend­ing band aside and al­low Lega­cy to pass first, but this did not hap­pen.

“When I turned my band in re­verse, he let the band go. He lied to me. I think that is dis­hon­esty.”

The 40-plus-year Car­ni­val vet­er­an has won five Band of the Year ti­tles, mul­ti­ple Band of the Years in Brook­lyn and Long Is­land, New York, and in Boston, with nu­mer­ous awards al­so in Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Croix, and St Mar­tin.

“I may do Car­ni­val out­side as I am ac­cus­tomed to do­ing, but not in Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go au­thor­i­ties are very dis­hon­est, and they favour favourite bands,” An­toine said.

He added, “To be treat­ed this way, I am very up­set. I had enough; enough is enough.”

While peo­ple grad­u­al­ly fil­tered on­to the stage, An­toine re­peat­ed­ly took to the mu­sic truck to vent be­tween sets of Nailah Black­man and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous’ “Come Home” and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s “Hard Fete.”

Al­though the pa­trons ini­tial­ly seemed in sup­port of An­toine’s com­plaint against the NCC, cheer­ing his speech at the start, the mood changed and boos echoed through the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah by the 45-minute mark of Lega­cy’s stay on the stage while An­toine spoke be­tween the mu­sic.

Af­ter wait­ing sev­er­al hours to cross the stage, then hold­ing up the Pa­rade of the Bands for near­ly one hour, Lega­cy fi­nal­ly had their “last jam” just af­ter 2 pm yes­ter­day.

Some Lega­cy mas­quer­aders were equal­ly up­set.

“It is ridicu­lous what they did to Mike. Mike don’t de­serve that kind of treat­ment. He is too much of a mas­quer­ad­er,” one mas­quer­ad­er said.

“I’ve played with Mike in dif­fer­ent coun­tries all over the world – Lon­don, New York, St Thomas, St Marten, Do­mini­ca, Bar­ba­dos – all over the place. This is the kind of treat­ment they’re giv­ing one of the sons of Car­ni­val. This is the moth­er of all Car­ni­vals. Yu­ma, you should be ashamed of your­selves.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to NCC chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters and YU­MA’s PR team for com­ment on the is­sue but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time last evening.

With the fate of Lega­cy hang­ing in the bal­ance, Guardian me­dia asked mas­quer­aders who they will go next year.

Re­sound­ing­ly, they chant­ed, “Lega­cy.”