Pan Elders win 7th medium title, eye possible move to large band

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Fol­low­ing their sev­enth vic­to­ry in the medi­um-bands cat­e­go­ry, the Pan El­ders Steel Or­ches­tra may be en­ter­ing a new area of com­pe­ti­tion next Car­ni­val, ac­cord­ing to band leader Hol­lis­ter Smith.

The San Fer­nan­do-based band se­cured the top spot, earn­ing 289 points, beat­ing ten oth­er medi­um bands, in­clud­ing close ri­vals the Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille, who earned 284 points and the Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra, who came in third with 278 points.

Both the Pan El­ders and the Sound Spe­cial­ists have been in a close race since the ear­ly stages of this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, with the lat­ter se­cur­ing a three-point lead over the Pan El­ders in the pre­lim­i­nary phase, while the Pan El­ders took the lead dur­ing the se­mi-fi­nal stage.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia Ltd af­ter the an­nounce­ment of the re­sults on the main stage of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, Smith said while the idea of the band en­ter­ing the large-band cat­e­go­ry has been sug­gest­ed in the past, it was some­thing that re­quired care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.

“We have one ti­tle in the small (cat­e­go­ry) and sev­en (ti­tles) now in medi­um.

“Be­cause we don’t have a spon­sor... to go to the large (cat­e­go­ry) would be very, very dif­fi­cult.

“Every­body is say­ing ‘go large,’ but how are you go­ing large with­out the sup­port? So we might look at that af­ter the sea­son and de­cide whether we can go up or just stay here and rule this di­vi­sion.”

Smith said while the band has re­ceived some sup­port from busi­ness­es in and around San Fer­nan­do, in­clud­ing the TECU Cred­it Union, San­icup, S&S Hard­ware and St Joseph Poul­try, they have nev­er been ful­ly spon­sored by one ma­jor com­pa­ny.

Dur­ing their per­for­mance, Pan El­ders per­formed Ma­gi­cian, al­ter­na­tive­ly ti­tled I Com­mand You, a 1999 Road March sin­gle by An­tiguan So­ca band Burn­ing Flames.

Play­ers were led by arranger Ojay Richards, dressed in a cape and mask, as ma­gi­cian Kess the Il­lu­sion­ist al­so joined the per­for­mance, caus­ing a dove to ma­te­ri­alise from a paint­ing, much to the au­di­ence’s de­light.

The per­for­mance con­clud­ed with Kess hold­ing a black sheet up, caus­ing Richards to “dis­ap­pear” from the view of the spec­ta­tors, prompt­ing a rau­cous ap­plause.

Af­ter the per­for­mance, Richards said the il­lu­sion­ist was orig­i­nal­ly a con­sul­tant with the band, but even­tu­al­ly got in­volved in the pre­sen­ta­tion as he felt it would be a nat­ur­al fit in keep­ing with the mys­ti­cal theme of the song.

“What bet­ter way to bring him on... he’s one of the great­est ma­gi­cians in Trinidad right now, so it was a good fit, and we brought him on, and he did phe­nom­e­nal­ly.”

Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists, who placed sec­ond, per­formed the clas­sic Soft Man by Pen­guin in the first spot for the evening’s com­pe­ti­tion, at­tract­ing sim­i­lar ap­plause and cheers from the crowd.

The Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra copped a third-place fin­ish with their ren­di­tion of Machel Mon­tano’s The Fog. The band in­cor­po­rat­ed the use of pow­der on stage as band mem­bers in tra­di­tion­al sailor mas uni­forms dabbed each oth­er in a scaled-down recre­ation of the J’Ou­vert-themed spec­ta­cle.

The Cou­va Joy­lan­ders tied with the Ari­ma An­gel Harps Steel Or­ches­tra with a dead­lock score of 275 points each, de­spite spir­it­ed per­for­mances.

This is the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year that the Joy­lan­ders have tied. In 2025, the band tied with the Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra in third place.

- The Pan El­ders Steel Or­ches­tra -289 points

- The Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists of Laven­tille - 284 points

- Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra - 278 points

- Cou­va Joy­lan­ders and Ari­ma An­gel Harps - 275 points

- Dix­ieland Steel Or­ches­tra - 272 points

- San­gre Grande Cordettes - 269 points

- Sforza­ta Steel Or­ches­tra - 268 points

- Steel Ex­plo­sion Steel Or­ches­tra - 267 points

- Curepe Scherzan­do Steel Or­ches­tra - 265 points