Al­though the sweet strains of Sa­van­nah Grass may have won the peo­ple’s hearts this Car­ni­val, Famalay ruled the stage and looks set to give Machel Mon­tano his tenth Road March ti­tle.

At the South Quay, Port-of-Spain judg­ing point yes­ter­day, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 bands crossed the stage, start­ing with Tribe at 9 am. About 10 of these bands played Sa­van­nah Grass while Na­dia Bat­son’s So Long and Farmer Nap­py’s Hookin’ Meh were both played twice. The oth­er bands stuck to Famalay.

With their pre­sen­ta­tion of the Em­pire, Tribe mas­quer­aders took over the stage show­ing off their elab­o­rate cos­tumes to Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous’ Famalay. If the song takes the cov­et­ed Road March ti­tle, it will be a first for both Skin­ny and Gar­lin.

Bands Pa­parrazi, Have ah Time, Mas Pas­sion, Rev­el Car­ni­val, Adren­a­line City, We In­ter­na­tion­al, Se­crets, Show­time, Switch Mas Band, Ama­zon, Pe­tle Mas and live steel­pan bands Massy All Stars and Des­per­a­dos Steel Or­ches­tra all crossed the stage be­fore noon.

In the af­ter­noon, the thou­sands who lined the route to see the cos­tumes were not dis­ap­point­ed, as the more tra­di­tion­al mas bands be­gan to take the stage with every­thing from Blue Dev­ils to Dame Lor­raines in every size, shape and colour.

Shirley Glas­glow, 74, who has been in a wheel­chair for a “long time” af­ter in­juries she sus­tained in a car ac­ci­dent, said she nev­er miss­es Car­ni­val in Port-of-Spain.

“Sat­ur­day I was in the Sa­van­nah, Sun­day I was in St James, I not miss­ing any­thing! As long as I have life, I will come out to watch mas,” she told the T&T Guardian.

Glas­gow said her Road March pick was Sa­van­nah Grass. Point­ing out mas­quer­aders from Jus We and Friends who took the stage to a live band singing Di­ef­fen­thaller’s most pop­u­lar 2019 tune, she said, “That is why I love it, look at these peo­ple how they feel­ing this mu­sic.”

But Down­town Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee chair­man Wen­dell Stephen said Famalay seemed poised to take the ti­tle.

“There are bands that are play­ing Sa­van­nah Grass but from what we have seen from Kid­dies Car­ni­val com­ing for­ward, Famalay seems to have the edge,” Stephen said.

Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez agreed.

“Famalay is where it is at..I have heard that a lot of times at the oth­er venues, but every­one loves Sa­van­nah Grass, it is very melod­ic and has such a love­ly groove, it is go­ing to have a lot of longevi­ty to that song,” Mar­tinez said.

“I think Famalay has it though.”

Mar­tinez praised the po­lice for a very safe Car­ni­val, say­ing the heavy po­lice pres­ence put both spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders at ease.

“When you have them all around and you see the of­fi­cers on every cor­ner it gives you a sense of com­fort. All in all, I felt very com­fort­able and I saw the rev­ellers seemed so re­laxed and com­fort­able and en­joyed the fes­tiv­i­ties. We al­so have a marked in­crease in the num­ber of spec­ta­tors and a lot more bands par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Car­ni­val this year.”