Carisa Lee, Jan­nelle Bernard & Chester Sam­bra­no

Sev­er­al of the big bands stayed away from the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Car­ni­val Mon­day, but those who crossed the stage ex­pressed ex­u­ber­ance over the re­turn of Car­ni­val af­ter the two-year hia­tus caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

J'Ou­vert band Clay Evo­lu­tion holds the ho­n­our of be­ing the first band to cross the main stage this year, with thou­sands of mas­quer­aders pranc­ing across the stage be­fore the sun rose.

With the mud and paint J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions all wound down at the Sa­van­nah by 9 am, it was the turn of the tra­di­tion­al char­ac­ters to take their walks be­fore the judges with pre­sen­ta­tions that ranged from blue dev­ils to bats to fan­cy sailors be­fore an ap­pre­cia­tive au­di­ence that was just be­gin­ning to build ahead of the mas band pre­sen­ta­tions.

Ron­nie and Caro was the first big band to take the stage with their pre­sen­ta­tion, "This is Par­adise". As is the tra­di­tion on Car­ni­val Mon­days, the mul­ti­ple Band of the Year win­ners crossed the stage in blue jer­seys with the band's name and theme em­bla­zoned on them.

Most of their mas­quer­aders were in var­i­ous coloured biki­ni bot­toms or short pants, tak­ing the stage to Bun­ji Gar­lin's "Hard Fete".

Band leader Ron­nie McIn­tosh said he was elat­ed that the coun­try could cel­e­brate Car­ni­val again.

"This is par­adise. We had this con­cept af­ter the 2020 Car­ni­val, ba­si­cal­ly fo­cus­ing on Trinidad and To­ba­go...how fan­tas­tic we are. It's all about eu­pho­ria, about seren­i­ty, it's about ec­sta­sy, it's about 'Thank God Car­ni­val is back.'"

His band has be­tween 1,000 and 1,200 mas­quer­aders, and he felt that fig­ure was about the most he could man­age at this time. He is eye­ing the top prize again.

"It's good to be on the stage, but it's good to have some kin­da in­come com­ing in be­cause we had none com­ing in for the last how many years, you know that. To­mor­row is cos­tumes, to­mor­row is nice­ness, to­mor­row is every­thing or­gan­ised and struc­tured and sec­tioned, and to­mor­row is Band of the Year," he said.

One fe­male mas­quer­ad­er in his band summed up her feel­ing in a few sim­ple words, "It feels won­der­ful two years lat­er, won­der­ful...woooo!"

Niger­ian Tun­ji Ade­bayo crossed the stage with the band and ex­pressed his joy at be­ing there.

"It's been amaz­ing. This is my first time here, a new ex­pe­ri­ence and just see­ing all the cul­ture. It's like go­ing to a home you've nev­er know, so I plan to be back, thank you to my new neigh­bours, my new fam­i­ly," he said.

The Lost Tribe was the next big band to cross the stage, do­ing so in the mid-af­ter­noon pe­ri­od with mas­quer­aders dressed in or­ange and green out­fits.

As the af­ter­noon pro­gressed it was clear that most of the mega bands were not com­ing to the Sa­van­nah, but pa­trons were not de­nied the plea­sure of fur­ther bands as Blow Man Blow Mas Pro­duc­tions came with a pre­sen­ta­tion of "Flag Par­ty Trib­ute to Su­perblue" with a live brass band ac­com­pa­ny­ing them.

Austin "Su­perblue" Lyons was al­so among them and was thrilled by the pre­sen­ta­tion.

"This is brass for the world...Trib­ute to Su­perblue, awe­some. It's a nice feel­ing on stage and look out for me tonight (Mon­day night) in the brass.

"It's roy­al..it's (like) a fam­i­ly band," he said.

Hinds, Mar­tinez over­see down­town mas

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds made sure that he did not miss out on the ac­tiv­i­ty as he car­ried an iron and steel rhythm for Massy Trinidad All Stars.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at the South Quay judg­ing point, he was sat­is­fied with the start of the Car­ni­val.

"So far, so good," he said.

He said the mas up to that point yes­ter­day af­ter­noon had been large­ly in­ci­dent free.

"The mood is beau­ti­ful, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple of our coun­try and our vis­i­tors, and there are thou­sands of them, are just at peace and en­joy­ing them­selves," he said.

Hinds said in the lead-up to Car­ni­val he had reg­u­lar brief­in­gs with the heads of the var­i­ous Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies and con­tin­ues to be briefed dai­ly.

"I am sat­is­fied that the air and the sea and the land sup­port and all the in­ter-agency in­ter-ar­tic­u­la­tions are in place," he said.

As it re­lat­ed to over­all crime, the min­is­ter said he was "con­fi­dent that the mea­sures that are in place will con­tin­ue to bear pow­er­ful fruit and the sit­u­a­tion will get bet­ter."

His con­fi­dence is be­ing cou­pled with hope from Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez who was al­so down­town over­see­ing the cel­e­bra­tions.

He ad­mit­ted that he was anx­ious as Car­ni­val drew near­er but has been re­as­sured by the pres­ence and work of the se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

"Port-of-Spain is epic," he said.

In terms of his picks for Road March, May­or Mar­tinez has three con­tenders, Machel Mon­tano and De­stra "Shake the Place", Bun­ji Gar­lin "Hard Fete", and Nailah Black­man and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous "Come Home".

For Hinds it's Olatun­ji "En­gine Room".

In and around the cap­i­tal city sev­er­al large bands were parad­ing through the streets.

The colour and the ex­cite­ment were mixed to­geth­er to cre­ate the ex­pe­ri­ence for the mas­quer­aders and the scores of on­look­ers who lined the pave­ments.

Lara's flights con­cern, bees cause trou­ble

For crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara it was amaz­ing be­ing back on the road af­ter two years with­out play­ing mas, but he did have one con­cern.

"We have to get more flights in, a lot of my friends couldn't get back to Trinidad be­cause of flights, so hope­ful­ly next year it's go­ing to be a lot bet­ter. But af­ter two years' ab­sence, it's amaz­ing," he said.

Lara said he plans to play with Tribe Mas Band to­day.

From most of the ac­counts from par­tic­i­pants and those look­ing on, the process seemed to go with­out any ma­jor hic­cups.

There was one is­sue that caused a tem­po­rary halt in bands mak­ing their way to the Vic­to­ria Square judg­ing point.

A swarm of bees in­vad­ed the area at the cor­ner of Cipri­ani Boule­vard and Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

At­i­ba Noel, of Re­act Trinidad and To­ba­go Coun­cil, said the bees were, "Prob­a­bly ac­ti­vat­ed by the mu­sic and the pass­ing ve­hi­cles, so right now the (Port-of-Spain) Cor­po­ra­tion has been dis­patched, and they sent some­body to deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

Mean­while, not too far away of­fi­cers of the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion were on the road con­duct­ing checks of road­side ven­dors to en­sure that their li­cences were in or­der to al­low them to ply their trade.

One of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia that the in­ten­tion is to check every sin­gle ven­dor.

–with re­port­ing by Samp­son Nan­ton