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I wasn't there but i was dey
Written by : Martin Jay
Location : London
Posted : Mar 1, 2007 : 11:22:41 AM |
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I have not missed a Trinidad Carnival since 1995, so I knew February 2007 was going to be tough for me. I can safely say that I suffered a Carnival Tabanca! However, thanks to modern technology I managed to do the next best thing: I watched The International Soca Monarch and Groovy Soca Monarch shows live on the net.
I subscribed to JumpTV and purchased the SOCA MONARCH. It was scheduled for an 8pm start, midnight here in the UK, so I decided to get myself ready for some big liming. By 7pm my time I had fried de chicken, put up a 4ft by 4ft screen in my front room, connected my laptop to the projector and drunk half a bottle of brandy.
There was a late start, but just as I was about to give up, bang: there in front of me was the national Stadium of Trinidad, and de session was about to start.
As always, the Groovy Soca Monarch competition starts the night off. We had solid performances from Patrice Roberts with Sugar Boy, Nadia Batson and her Caribbean Girl, Chucky’s Turn Around, Shurwayne Winchester with Alequa and Crazy’s Cold Sweat, although I wasn’t too sure about those girls that Crazy had on the stage with him.
Biggie Irie was a deserved winner in my opinion; his delivery was simple and straightforward, and the catchy song did enough to win him the 2007 Groovy Soca Monarch Crown (the first non-Trini ever to win a title in Trinidad & Tobago).
Between the competitions, KMC and his band made a guest performance which was spot on, just what you needed to get you hyped up for the forthcoming battle.
The International Soca Monarch is a competition that I have mixed opinions about. I was there for the very first one in 1993, at the Spectrum on Wrightson Road, and have been present at the majority of them ever since. On one hand, I think the competition has been responsible for encouraging artists to create too much ‘jump and wave’ material, to the point where I think that people write songs with the soca monarch crowd in mind; on the other hand, I appreciate that it has become the major spectacle of carnival, and has viewers from all over the world wanting to see soca music at its ultimate high.
2007 produced some great performances, especially from Nadia Batson, Shurwayne Winchester, Dawg E Slaughter, and a very humourous performance from JW and Blaze with Eat A Food. The winner of the bmobile International Soca Monarch of 2007 was Iwer George, singing his song Fete after Fete. If I am honest, I thought that it was a brave song to enter the contest with, considering it’s tempo, but I can understand how Iwer’s experience would have enabled him to have the crowd eating out of his hand at what was already a very popular song.
In summary, JumpTV saved me from having a nervous breakdown, because I felt that I had at least experienced a piece of carnival. I had finished off a bottle of 1919, and I didn’t get to sleep until 8am Trinidad time, midday here. I was mash – a true carnival feeling! Only a few hours to recover, and then we would do it all over again for Panorama. |
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