Moods of Pan  Five-Alive in Review

By Joanne Hillhouse

Musical Youths did it again, handily claiming another Five Alive victory and seeing their name entered onto the challenge trophy for the fifth time.

The popular Saturday night installment of Gemonites’ Moods of Pan suffered from notable lulls – between a late start, and other minor hiccups, including a lengthy set up time for the night’s closer Taxik – but when the music was good it was very good.
This included guest sets by Courts New Dimensions and the aforementioned Taxik, featuring Claudette Peters, Sleepy and Soldier Man – which sent the lingerers home in high spirits.

The main attraction, however, was the competition itself, and, as has been the pattern almost since the inception of ‘the biggest little pan competition in the world’ in 2000, Musical Youths was the, almost undisputed star of the show.

Playing Jumbie, from the musical catalogue of the night’s honoree, Paul ‘King Obstinate’ Richards, Musical Youths, though second in the night’s eight team line-up, were the ones who really opened the batting. It was fortuitous placement given the popularity of the Jumbie tune among the competing five-member sides.

Shrouded in black, soon discarded to reveal zombie-like attire, faces painted white, they once again provided a dramatic interpretation of their choice piece, complete with Thriller-esque choreography about two thirds of the way through, hyping things up even more. Crowd response is 30 points, a healthy chunk of the total, and Musical Youth seems to understand that better than anyone. But, what they also brought to Jumbie was musical drama, easing into the tune gently and then heating things up, with a little Latin-spice and its requisite choreography, building toward a fiery climax and, quite literally, an effective ‘dead’ finish.

The slightly changed Musical Youths line-up – which, this time around, included Alvin Livingstone, Jeremy Jarvis, Ali Davis, Steve Mason, and Kareem Gore – claimed US$2005 as their prize.

It was unfortunate that given Obstinate’s extensive list of humourous, dramatic and resonant compositions, so many of the groups limited themselves to the obvious choices, Children Melee following Jumbie as the second most over-played tune of the night. Following Musical Youths, it, in a sense, doomed the other bands to being measured against them, unless, of course, they could distinctively put their stamp on the tune.

Jolly Beach manager, Ted Isaac – joining Tourism Minister Harold Lovell and the night’s chief sponsor, Community First Cooperative Credit Union, onstage to honour Obsti – commented, in passing, on this lack of diversity in the selections.
“I must tell you,” he said to a seated Obsti, “that I am very disappointed tonight nobody played ‘The Wedding’ with Short Shirt, because that’s one of my favourite songs.”

To an observer, it would seem, generally, that perhaps some citation – even a video citation, complete with performance footage – of the honorees should be prepared given the seeming limited awareness of Saturday night’s honoree among especially the younger audience members.

As for the competition, only one other band attempting Jumbie managed to achieve a level of drama akin to Musical Youths. That was Bachaanal – Marlon Dyer, Devon Davidson, Foster Ralph, Julian Simmonds, Winston Ralph. They began their rendition with an obituary for Santa Claus, the band members as white-afro’d pall bearers, the red-clothed figure held aloft between them. That got the crowd’s attention, as did the fact that they unselfconsciously threw themselves into the energetic performance – including vocalizing the song’s distinctive “Aaaahwoooooh!”

Even more theatre was to come, as one of the performers left the stage to wrestle with the corpse and be turned into a zombie, which, while a bit of a distraction from the playing, also got the crowd going. The climaxing moment was when the newly made zombie responded to the players’ entreaty to “rise, Jumbie, rise”, and finished out the set by conducting the final moments of the performance.

There were some in the audience who thought Bacchanal easily knocked Musical Youth from their comfortable perch atop the Five Alive rankings, but the judges did not agree.

The BWIA Ebony Steel Orchestra copped the third spot with their puppetry – and the surreality of seeing ‘George W. Bush’ bruk ‘way – on Pappy Show. The “Most Travelling Band in the World” included Samuel DuBois, Carlene Etienne, Sean Clarke, Kayley Lewis, and Ashley George.

At the other end of the rankings was Diablesse, which, in keeping with the Five Alive tradition of awarding prizes to the best and worst sides of the evening, received EC $205.

There were eight competing groups in all, considerably less than had been previously announced, with visitors from across the Caribbean Sea and as far away as England among them. The crowd was kept awake between sets by Five Alive trivia and the opportunity to grab prizes offered up by sponsors Colombian Emeralds, Medpath, and Community First – a Five Alive partner from the very beginning. On this score, the Carnival panorama might be encouraged to borrow a page from Gemonites’ and Moods’ book.

As for the competition’s future, well, Musical Youths has hinted that this will be their last year; but then again, they said as much last year.

Previously published in the Daily Observer, Tuesday November 29, 2005, under the headline Musical Youths Make It Five.