Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Ron­nie and Caro Mas copped the Large Band of the Year ti­tle in Down­town Car­ni­val on Tues­day for their por­tray­al This is Par­adise.

They were fol­lowed by Pa­parazzi Car­ni­val in sec­ond and The Lost Tribe in third.

The re­sults were an­nounced yes­ter­day by Down­town Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee chair­man Clint Bap­tiste.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia af­ter­wards, band­leader Ron­nie McIn­tosh said he was elat­ed to re­turn to Car­ni­val on top.

“It’s a great feel­ing (for) Caro and my­self. (It) feels good to be back on the stage and it’s al­so a good feel­ing to start off af­ter the two-years break and no Car­ni­val. It’s nice to come back out win­ning where you left, be­cause we left on a win­ning note,” he said.

“It’s a great feel­ing, so we give thanks to God for all the bless­ings and we give thanks to all the mas­quer­aders them­selves who had been sup­port­ing us over the years. I mean, we have mas­quer­aders who were with us since we start­ed in 2008 and this win is for them...as well.”

This was the fourth over­all ti­tle for the band.

Al­so com­ing out on top was Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez and Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez, whose Hard Fete took the Down­town Car­ni­val Road March ti­tle.

McIn­tosh said he con­grat­u­lat­ed the cou­ple on their win, say­ing the song was his mas­quer­aders’ choice to cross the stage.

“On Mon­day, we did a lit­tle test run, as you call it, be­fore we crossed the stage. We ba­si­cal­ly played all four (con­tend­ing songs) and the Bun­ji Gar­lin got the most re­sponse from the mas­quer­aders,” he said.

Mean­while, May­or Mar­tinez said con­cern over the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the on­go­ing stig­ma of crime in the cap­i­tal were re­spon­si­ble for low spec­ta­tor turnout for Mon­day’s J’Ou­vert fes­tiv­i­ties.

Mar­tinez said bands once grav­i­tat­ed away from down­town due to crime con­cerns but nev­er re­turned de­spite the quelling of the scourge.

“What we are see­ing now is that over the years, they haven’t re­al­ly come back in­to Port-of-Spain as such, think­ing that Port-of-Spain was still un­safe but that has changed. Port-of-Spain is no longer un­safe be­cause over the years we have worked with the se­cu­ri­ty forces to en­sure that Port-of-Spain is now and will re­main safe in­to the fu­ture,” he said.

De­spite the slow start to the promised “Moth­er of All Car­ni­vals,” Mar­tinez said he was sat­is­fied with how things turned out.

“Car­ni­val was tru­ly a suc­cess. Af­ter two years of COVID-19 we’re back. Not just back, we are back in a very mag­nif­i­cent, ex­cit­ing, mo­ti­vat­ed and in­vig­o­rat­ed. Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have the great­est Car­ni­val on earth,” he said.

Bap­tiste not­ed that ad­ver­tis­ing the safe­ty of the events will be among their re­brand­ing agen­da in the fu­ture.

“Based on rec­om­men­da­tions, as well as con­ver­sa­tion with the Down­town Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, we have sat down and re­alised we need­ed to make things a bit more user-friend­ly in terms of the Down­town Car­ni­val stand. So, we pro­pose that mov­ing for­ward, we put an on­line op­tion to pur­chase tick­ets, we brand the Down­town Car­ni­val as a safe one, as one where you can see most bands pass so that per­sons would feel com­fort­able com­ing back down­town,” he said.

Down­town Car­ni­val Re­sults

(Pa­rade of the Bands)

Small:

Trib­al Con­nec­tion: Na­tion­al Pride

Cheyenne Peo­ple: Cheyenne Sun Dancers

Bel­mont Ex­ot­ic Styl­ish Sailors: Cel­e­bra­tion in Steel

Medi­um:

K2K Al­liance & Part­ners: World Wars in the Time of Sa­lome

Ki­net­ic Mas: Cy­ber Na­tion

Im­age Na­tion: Lim­bo

Large:

Ron­nie & Caro: This is Par­adise

Pa­parazzi Car­ni­val: Break­away Beats

Lost Tribe: 202WE

J’Ou­vert:

King: Ever­ton Car­di­nal - The Best Way to Stop the Virus

Queen: Mar­gret Mon­tano - Er­la Takes Charge