Joanne Brig­gs

In a ra­dio in­ter­view last Fri­day, Machel Mon­tano said he was in­struct­ed to keep his Machel Mon­day So­ca King­dom pre­sen­ta­tion to three hours.

“You know that is hard to do,” he laughed.

On Mon­day night, which her­ald­ed the count­down to the great­est show on earth, Mon­tano kept a tight en­ter­tain­ing show which fin­ished just around 2 am, an ear­ly fin­ish in com­par­i­son to his pre­vi­ous con­certs.

The ap­pear­ance of Bun­ji Gar­lin’s dur­ing Buss Head was sur­prise #1; his wife Fay Ann’s per­for­mance of her Road March hits— an­oth­er sur­prise; and Patrice Robert’s all-out, ro­bust per­for­mance were the high­lights of this year’s edi­tion of the Mon­day night af­fair.

The pre-show per­for­mance by chut­ney so­ca band Kar­ma, fea­tured Ravi B, Michelle B and one part of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch 2018 roy­al­ty Nishard M.

The reper­toire was a mix of well-known Ravi B hits such as this year’s Po­lice, as well as Bud­get, Bread and Ah Drinker which segued in­to a Nishad’s med­ley of Ba­jan in­va­sion hits such as Nah Go­ing Home, In­som­nia and Pump Me Up. They al­so of­fered time­less so­ca which in­clud­ed To­by Prescott’s All Aboard; By­ron Lee’s Tiny Winey; Ar­row’s Long Time and Tam­bu’s Free Up.

Ex­act­ly at 10 pm cur­tains to the So­ca King­dom were drawn with the en­trance of the pre­sen­ta­tion Death and the Maid­en de­signed by mas leg­end Pe­ter Min­shall ac­com­pa­nied by Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus’ off stage per­for­mance of Bach’s Toc­ca­ta and Fugue in D mi­nor.

This was fol­lowed by the mas­quer­aders of the Min­shall and Ex­o­dus’ Car­ni­val pro­duc­tion The Eyes of God. They played a ma­jor part of the con­cert’s dé­cor dur­ing evening-in­to-morn­ing per­for­mances.

Un­der the first wave of sailors with huge flags dot­ted with eyes, Mon­tano ap­peared with Su­perBlue singing the road march con­tender. He con­tin­ued the hype with Wait­ing on De Stage, Bumper, Min­istry of Road, Show­time. “TT is the king­dom of win­ing,” he said as he in­tro­duced his front­line dancers from Trinidad, Slo­va­kia and Bar­ba­dos.

Caribbean heavy roller, St Vin­cent’s Skin­ny Fab­u­lous was the first of many per­form­ers to hold a mi­ni-con­cert on stage per­form­ing Push Back on the Pim Pim Rid­dim, Par­ty Start and join­ing the Ba­jan Marzville with Give It to Ya.

The next gen­er­a­tion of song writ­ers and per­form­ers al­so held court. “This is the So­ca King­dom of the World. This used to be Machel Mon­day but the King­dom must progress…The fu­ture is in the next gen­er­a­tion…the most tal­ent­ed are ready to suc­ceed in the King­dom,” Mon­tano said as he in­tro­duced Preedy, Nailah Black­man, Turn­er and Er­phaan Alves. Win­ners of the Dig­i­cel Mu­sic Acad­e­my, Ab­diel Mata­mo­ra from Trinidad and To­ba­go and duo, Tyler Au­guste and Jean Far­rah aka Lu City, from St. Lu­cia re­ceived their bap­tism of fire per­form­ing be­fore the large au­di­ence.

Reign­ing In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Voice, whom Mon­tano pro­claimed as the Prince of the King­dom, per­formed Cheers to Life, Far From Fin­ished, his duet with Marge Black­man Full of Vibes and Fire Go Bun Dem. His vo­cals were at a fa­mil­iar pitch, re­cov­er­ing from his de­but at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta on Sat­ur­day.

Nishard M re­turned to the stage to per­form with Neval Chate­lal, demon­strat­ing why they won the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch ti­tle a week ago and high­light­ing Min­shall’s proverb “One Peo­ple, all ah we is one, we are all cre­at­ed in the eyes of God.”

Gar­lin’s ap­pear­ance on stage, was cel­e­brat­ed by the crowd who filled the foot­ball field and Di­a­mond sec­tion of the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. “Sur­prise!” he said, af­ter he joined Mon­tano singing “Buss Head.” Af­ter singing his 2018 hits and spit­ting ex­tem­po lyrics, he ex­plained: “How yuh could have the whole So­ca King­dom and not have the Viking? ...My friend and broth­er (to Mon­tano), we roll in the one­ness.”

Haunt­ed, Fog, Hap­pi­est Man Alive, Epic, Bot­tle of Rum, Vibes Cyah Done fol­lowed. Af­ter, Mon­tano made a switch to Span­ish with his re­vis­it of Celia Cruz’ La Vi­da Es Un Car­naval, his reg­gae­ton Ma­ma Lo Tiene, Luis Fon­si’s De­spaci­to and Willy William’s Mi Gente. This in­tro­duced French Mon­tana, with the so­ca remix of Taio Cruz’s Row the Body. While the in­clu­sion of the reg­u­lar Venezue­lan dancers on this set was wel­comed by the au­di­ence, French Mon­tana’s per­for­mance did not car­ry the hype as the rest of the show, even as he per­formed the pop­u­lar All the Way Up and Un­for­get­table.

But Queen of Bac­cha­nal, De­stra Gar­cia and the Queen of Sass, Na­dia Bat­son soon erased the slow pace, tak­ing the show back to an en­er­gised lev­el. On her own, De­stra sang her clas­sic Bon­nie and Clyde and Is Car­ni­val. In the Road March zone, Grena­da’s Lil Nat­ty and Thun­der per­formed Top Strik­er, fol­lowed by Shal Marhsall then St Vin­cent’s Prob­lem Child.

Patrice Roberts’ ap­pear­ance in a black, feath­ered gown had the crowd in awe as they watched her wine in her form fit­ting dress, hitch­ing it up for bet­ter leg room as she danced with Lyrikal. She showed her com­mand of the stage when she sang this sea­son’s hit Sweet for Days, ac­com­pa­nied by Ex­o­dus. She re­turned to sing her 2006 road-march Band of the Year. Be­fore the end of her set, she told Mon­tano, “Thank you for cre­at­ing this mon­ster.”

Road march 2015 hit Like a Boss, in­tro­duced an­oth­er Road March con­tender Iw­er George. His 2018 hit Sa­van­nah raised the tem­po fur­ther, along with his jab-jab themed Come to Meh and well-known Wa­ter. But his ex­cite­ment was doused when Sun­ny Bling did not ap­pear on stage to sing his spoof Bar­ra.

The au­di­ence didn’t miss a beat, how­ev­er, as Mon­tano reap­peared for the fi­nale, singing So­ca King­dom with Road March leg­end Su­perBlue. The un­der­ly­ing Jab Jab rhythm quick­ly linked to a med­ley of his hits, Jab Mo­lassie, Bachan­nal Time, Sig­nal (Trib­ute to Lara), Wine on Some­thing and Fan­tas­tic Fri­day. “This is the king,” said Mon­tano. “I am just the prince.” Be­tween them they have 17 ti­tles. To make it even, they pre­sent­ed the Road March Queen Fay Ann Lyons who sang win­ning songs Get On and Meet Su­per.

The ban­ter con­tin­ued be­tween Lyons and Mon­tano, en­cour­ag­ing the big flags Two Face, Pow­der Posse, G6 to a wave off. Re­turn­ing to where they start­ed, So­ca King­dom end­ed in eu­pho­ria.