Phase II at Champs in Concert '05
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I do not agree with this Pan Yard judging
Staff Article
Interview Recorded: April 24, 2005
Posted: April 30, 2005
I do not agree with this Pan Yard judging. I love Pan but I do not agree with it. I experienced it once and I do not like it because I had to be running up the hill, across here, down there and all over, so you cannot enjoy it. There are bands that you would hear that you would not hear again, nice music that you would never hear again and even the sponsors and they listen to it. I think it is destroying bands from elevating. Not straying, but it comes just like the fetes. If you go ten fetes, you hear five same bands. Traffic would leave one fete, and play first in another fete because they had to play in Arima, then Traffic leaves Arima because they had to go down South. What about the young and up-coming musicians, the young bands? Traffic was no big band and Machel was no big band, they are bands that developed. If you are not given a chance to develop, you are crashing it. Carnival is heading for a crash like the plane the other day. Thank God they survived. When you have so many engagements in one night you cannot put out your best. If I know I am going to play in a certain place tonight, you are going to get the best from me tonight. I have a good relationship with Sherwyn and them because they used to play for me with Jackie Johnson and CJ and them. What I am saying is, the experience with playing in four fetes a night is terrible. Sometimes two, three players would come by me and sleep the night because they are too tired to go down South. What about the young bands? Even if you put Traffic and two little bands, you put volume on another band and it will give them incentive.
Coming back to Panorama. When you have only these bands here, Panorama will remain amongst them because nobody hearing them, they would not make it to 'The Big Yard'. What was nice with the Preliminaries, is if you haven't seen a man for about a year or two, you are sure to see him then. Coming back to the same family thing I talked about, people whom I haven't seen any other time, I will see them for Panorama. For Preliminaries everybody comes out looking nice. Culturally everybody looking for something nice, looking toward going to the show, everybody hailing out to each other, saying how glad they are to see each other, ask who playing with what band and that sort of thing. For me the beginning of Carnival is Preliminaries. When they destroyed that, Carnival went into a different phase. With Preliminaries, everybody comes out. They want to start from the Semis', but with Semis' only some people coming out. If my band from Arima or Tunapuna not coming I am not coming down town, I do not care to hear Despers or anybody because I already know is one, two, three, but I am coming down in a Tunapuna jersey because I know my band in the Savannah. That is no more. You wouldn't believe this, but there are players playing with three and four bands as a hustle now, because they know one of the bands will make it, so they will play in Casablanca or in Renegades and you will go down by Silver Stars and you will see them right there. The idea of eliminating the Preliminaries is terrible.
For all the years, you want to tell me Pantrinbago cannot earn enough money for three or four trucks and use them during the year? The cutting away of the Preliminaries was the worst thing. They say the Pan Yard judging is beneficial to the band. Let us take a look at that here. We are going to listen to Casablanca in the yard. How much nuts or beers you can sell in the yard? How much revenue you could make in the yard? How much could they generate, when we just listened to Casablanca but we want to listen to Renegades so we leave and go. How many of us will stay back when we want to hear Renegades? How many of us will stay back by Renegades when we want to hear All Stars? How many people are going to stay back by All Stars when we want to hear Despers? How many people really staying in the yard to say that the band is making money? What is there in the yard for the band to make money? I watched and I made it a study. I stood by Blanca and watched the nuts man pass and he sold about three packs of nuts, because people came in time for when the judges reached. Renegades might have their natural crowd that might be singing, playing and dancing and liming in the yard, and that's about it.
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