SHAS­TRI BOODAN

The Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra tast­ed sweet vic­to­ry on Sun­day night, when the band out of Black Rock, To­ba­go won the 2023 Medi­um Con­ven­tion­al Band ti­tle.

Katzen­jam­mers, led by Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, beat a field of 11 at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um to take home the cov­et­ed tro­phy.

Play­ing Baron's "Tell Me Why", Katzen­jam­mers faced the mid­night driz­zle when they ap­peared in the tenth po­si­tion on the big stage to de­liv­er their best to thou­sands of pan lovers across Trinidad and To­ba­go. The sup­port was im­mense es­pe­cial­ly across To­ba­go for Katzen­jam­mers. Pa­trons got up out of their seats and danced to a record­ing of "Tell Me Why" as the band was get­ting ready to play for the judges.

Arranger Kersh Ram­sey told the me­dia around 2 am on Mon­day af­ter he col­lect­ed and kissed the tro­phy:

"It's a dream come true!  To be hon­est, I don't know how to feel… it eh reg­is­ter yet... Wow! We win the Panora­ma and it's in To­ba­go.  Be proud Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra… We did it… We did it… We did it! Thank you, Je­sus!"

Katzenjammers Steel Orchestra on stage at the Panorama finals at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago, on Sunday 12 February 2023. [Image by SHASTRI BOODAN]

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Kersh Ram­sey said pri­or to go­ing on stage, he told the band to keep fo­cused. He said the se­cret was to put down the "best mu­sic" and hope that the band ex­e­cutes it.

"Give the judges what they want,” he said.  “Af­ter the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, they [re­fer­ring to the judges] made cer­tain com­ments and we went and did our home­work. The se­mi-fi­nals… same thing.”

“For the fi­nals, we just had to per­form.  We had the home-crowd ad­van­tage,” Ram­sey not­ed. “I put a li’l jig in it—come leh we go, leh we go—and I think that was the edge over all the bands." 

Ram­sey said when it comes to per­for­mance, Katzen­jam­mers have al­ways let its mu­sic speak for it­self.

Mean­while, Max­on Ram­sey, the cap­tain of the vic­to­ri­ous band, said the jour­ney to vic­to­ry was hard, es­pe­cial­ly the process of get­ting the play­ers out af­ter two years fol­low­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

He said this year's vic­to­ry was for Kersh, since this was the first time Kersh arranged for the band.

"Our band won the com­pe­ti­tion twice—2011 and 2012—and we were on top from the start,” Max­on said.  “This vic­to­ry is for Kersh."

Plac­ing sec­ond and third, re­spec­tive­ly, in the com­pe­ti­tion were NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders and Pam­beri.