Road March battle goes down to the wire

Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

While of­fi­cials of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) re­mained mum last evening on which song was in the lead for the Road March, based on what Guardian Me­dia heard at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, down­town Port-of-Spain and in San Fer­nan­do, Machel Mon­tano may have his twelfth ti­tle but was be­ing hot­ly pur­sued by Aaron “Voice” St Louis.

For the bands that crossed the judg­ing point in Port-of-Spain, Mon­tano’s En­core earned a eu­phor­ic re­sponse that oth­ers did not. Be­tween mid­day and five 5 pm, based on Guardian Me­dia’s count, a close sec­ond was Voice’s Cyah Be­have, with Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez’s Still A Road Man a dis­tant third.

For the most part, those stomp­ing the stage yes­ter­day could not be both­ered, as they wined, chipped, drank and mis­be­haved them­selves across the stages.

Guardian Me­dia sought some de­tails from TU­CO of­fi­cials. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing last year’s de­ba­cle where one tab­u­la­tor had to be dis­missed for voic­ing de­tails on the Road March count, all num­bers were be­ing kept a se­cret un­til lat­er to­day when the re­sults are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced.

The com­ments by the tab­u­la­tor at one of the San Fer­nan­do judg­ing points caused so­cial me­dia out­cries about the fair­ness of the com­pe­ti­tion, with so­ca artiste Fay Ann Lyons-Al­varez, wife of Bun­ji Gar­lin, adding her voice to the vir­tu­al con­dem­na­tion. The cou­ple lat­er an­nounced they were pub­licly with­draw­ing from en­ter­ing the Road March com­pe­ti­tion go­ing for­ward. How­ev­er, Gar­lin en­tered this year’s com­pe­ti­tion af­ter ap­peals from the fans.

At So­cadrome yes­ter­day, both Machel and Voice hopped on top of mu­sic trucks to give their re­spec­tive songs the added push.

For Voice, this could be his first Road March ti­tle, while Mon­tano is hop­ing to best Ald­wyn “Lord Kitch­en­er” Roberts for the most Road March ti­tles, as they are cur­rent­ly tied at 11 each.

Fel­low so­ca artiste De­stra Gar­cia yes­ter­day wished all three men the best but did tip her hat in a par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tion.

“I love Machel, we sing a song to­geth­er. I love Bun­ji, he’s been my friend for the longest while. We start­ed our ca­reers to­geth­er. So, he’s spe­cial to my heart, but, I can’t be­have my­self! I can’t pick. I can’t pick. I love them all. May the best man win. But, right now, what­ev­er they’re play­ing, I’m danc­ing.”

While the judges were busy­ing them­selves with count­ing Road March plays, tourists, spec­ta­tors, ven­dors and se­cu­ri­ty de­tails in Port-of-Spain were seen en­joy­ing them­selves.

All con­fet­ti and rem­nants of bands were swift­ly re­moved, ex­cept for the pow­der from Massy All Stars that re­mained on the stages. In the band was for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who claimed he was not be­hav­ing him­self, but there were no signs of mis­chief. For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, on the oth­er hand, doused Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ists with ba­by pow­der, much to the amuse­ment of Row­ley.