Three steelbands pull out of Generations of Steel ahead of Saturday show

Three of the head­line steel or­ches­tras billed to per­form at Sat­ur­day’s Gen­er­a­tions of Steel con­cert at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah have with­drawn from the event, cit­ing con­trac­tu­al and ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sues.

Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas and Shell In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra all an­nounced on Fri­day that they would no longer be per­form­ing at the event, which is sched­uled to take place on Ju­ly 11.

In a state­ment, Des­per­a­does said both its se­nior and youth or­ches­tras had tak­en the de­ci­sion not to per­form be­cause of “an im­passe re­gard­ing prospec­tive con­trac­tu­al agree­ments with the or­ga­niz­ers.”

The or­ches­tra said the de­ci­sion was tak­en “to safe­guard our­selves and en­sure the best in­ter­est of the Or­ches­tra.”

First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas al­so con­firmed its with­draw­al, say­ing it was “a dif­fi­cult but un­avoid­able de­ci­sion” that was be­yond the or­ches­tra’s con­trol.

The band said it could not con­tin­ue its par­tic­i­pa­tion be­cause “out­stand­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive and con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions re­main un­ful­filled.”

Shell In­vaders Steel Or­ches­tra like­wise an­nounced it would not be per­form­ing, cit­ing “un­avoid­able cir­cum­stances.” The or­ches­tra did not elab­o­rate but wished the or­gan­is­ers and re­main­ing par­tic­i­pat­ing bands a suc­cess­ful event.

The con­cert, pro­mot­ed as Dane Gul­ston and Friends present Gen­er­a­tions of Steel, is sched­uled to run from 6 pm to 10.30 pm at the Grand Stand, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Trinidad All Stars and Fon­claire re­main among the bands ad­ver­tised to per­form.

The with­drawals come days af­ter Pan Trin­ba­go is­sued a state­ment dis­tanc­ing it­self from the event.

In a re­lease on Ju­ly 8, Pan Trin­ba­go said it was “not the host, or­gan­is­er, or pro­mot­er of the event” and had no in­volve­ment in its plan­ning, man­age­ment or ex­e­cu­tion. The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so said it did not pos­sess tick­ets or pass­es for the show.