You have to love Trinis. I passed this sign on my Saturday morning walk. This seems to be fairly typical of how things go around here. Very nice sign and the concert it promotes is very reasonably priced. TT$30 converts to a bit less than US$5 so as I walked I gave serious thought to going to the concert. There was only one problem. I'll give you a moment to look carefully at the sign to see what the problem is.
The sign doesn't say what day or time the concert is; just the location and the cost. This seems to be in keeping with the Trini sense of signs and directions. Some things you are simply supposed to know. An unrelated example is the NAPA (the National Academy of the Performing Arts) which is the gigantic theater center in Trinidad. No web site, the box office has a calendar of past events but not for the current month. And the local newspapers tend to report performances after they happen.
So as soon as I got back to the apartment, I looked up "The Junior Champs in Steel" on the web which, of course brought up nothing whatever. But then I got lucky when I searched for "Queen's Park Savannah Foyer." That brought me a site that told me that the concert was today from 2:00 until 6:00.
So at the appointed time I set off for the Savannah and was almost immediately reminded that this is the rainy season in Trinidad. I know I'm not going to get a lot of sympathy from the Houstonians but I was caught in what can be described as a "white out" rain. It came down so hard that you could not see more than a few feet in front of you. I hadn't gotten more than a block from the apartment and did have an umbrella with me but even so by the time I got back I was soaked through and through. The rainy finally stopped about 3:30 and I debated whether to try again. Ultimately the deciding factor was the price. At that price I would still count it as money well spent even if I only saw a couple hours of the concert. A very soggy walk to the Savannah and I arrived at the Queen's Park Savannah Grandstand. The foyer area turns out to mean "under the grandstand." So we sat in tents and watched the teenagers perform under the stands.
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The first band I saw perform were the "Rising Stars" from the US Virgin Islands. (Do we call folks from USVI Americans?) Two of the groups were school organizations but this orchestra was sponsored by the USVI Superior Court. I assume there is a story behind that but I don't know what it is. A steel pan orchestra consists of a variety of steel drums and a conventional drum set. I also don't know why it is an orchestra and not a band but I don't make the rules. |
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Next came the BP Renegades which is a local group. About this point, the pattern was starting to appear and though I tried not to be self conscious about it, I did start to look around. I was, in fact, the only Caucasian there. I like this particular picture because it shows so many of the steel pan drums. What it doesn't show well... what no picture can really show despite my choice of shots for the Rising Stars... is that the musicians generally don't stand there and play. They dance around. |
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The final band I saw a full set for were the boys from St. Margaret;s Boy's College. And they took their dancing around seriously. And it was apparent that the girls from St Francis Girl's College were very entertained watching the boys perform. The Trinis use the word "college" differently than we do. For them, a college is what we'd call a high school. What you get when you finish college is still a degree but it is the equivalent of our high school diploma. So I was watching a bunch of high school bands perform. |
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The pictures just don't do the performances justice so I hunted up a video of the Rising Stars in action during the Carnival in the Virgin Islands. It does give the feel for what the concert was like. |
