PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Stage Gone Bad dom­i­nat­ed the Sa­van­nah stage, as the Road March race seemed to take a de­ci­sive swing to­wards the Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller and Neil “Iw­er” George’s col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Iw­er’s oth­er road march con­tend­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with Machel Mon­tano, was large­ly rel­e­gat­ed as a pre-stage hype song or an ex­it song for most bands cross­ing the stage.

The Grand Stand’s mid­dling au­di­ence, as well as a sprin­kling of spec­ta­tors in the seat­ing are of the North Park, saw three ma­jor Band of the Year con­tenders with­in the space of two hours as Ron­nie and Caro’s The Serengeti took the stage at around 9.30 am, while last year’s Large Band of the Year The Lost Tribe hit the stage with their pre­sen­ta­tion of Anan­si short­ly be­fore 11 am.

The Lost Tribe ac­com­mo­dat­ed Lor­rie-Anne Box­il, who opt­ed to play mas in a pros­thet­ic leg, in a wheel­chair to al­low her to cross the Sa­van­nah stage.

“I was in a car ac­ci­dent but that won’t stop me from com­ing to Car­ni­val, nev­er, nev­er, nev­er,” she said.

An­oth­er Lost Tribe mas­quer­ad­er, Solange Des Vi­gnes shared her spir­it. On Car­ni­val Mon­day, Des Vi­gnes in­jured her an­kle. She took the road, with her an­kle wrapped up, sup­port­ed by crotch­es which reg­u­lar­ly raised to the air dur­ing her time on the stage.

Reign­ing over­all Band of Year K2K Al­liance fol­lowed short­ly af­ter Lost Tribe, with their pre­sen­ta­tion The Great­est Show, boast­ing Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith, the wife of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and for­mer Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go 1999, as one of their mas­quer­aders.

Her hus­band had his time on stage ear­li­er, ac­com­pa­nied by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young and a large enough num­ber of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion Re­sponse Team of­fi­cers to po­ten­tial­ly qual­i­fy them as a small band.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith had al­so ear­li­er helped quell a protest on the track as ven­dors were in­censed that food and drinks from all-in­clu­sive bands had made their way on­to the track be­fore the Sa­van­nah stage on Mon­day.

“We had a lit­tle is­sue with drinks trucks com­ing on to the track, this is some­thing Mr David Lopez had put in place so the drinks truck wouldn’t come on the track to af­fect ven­dors. But yes­ter­day Tribe and Harts, they flout the whole thing and bring the drinks trucks on­to the track. I spoke to Mr Ken Nan­coo and Mr Grif­fith and we came to a de­ci­sion that will help every­body in there. And it avert every­thing and I just want to tell them thanks,” said David Bap­tiste, pres­i­dent of the Car­ni­val En­tre­pre­neurs As­so­ci­a­tion.

Along the track, many were anx­ious­ly await­ing the re­turn of Pe­ter Min­shall to the Sa­van­nah stage. His Ki­net­ic Mas pre­sen­ta­tion Mas Pieta even­tu­al­ly took the stage short­ly af­ter 5 pm.