KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Wis­er words have been spo­ken at a fête than when the so­ca monk, Machel Mon­tano, in­struct­ed par­ty­go­ers to pock­et their mo­bile phones so they could free their hands to jump and wave.

It was the im­pe­tus the crowd at Fri­day’s Mega par­ty at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um car park in Tarou­ba need­ed to set the at­mos­phere for three hours of non-stop wav­ing, win­ing, and jump­ing un­der the cloudy night sky.

With the event dubbed The Home­com­ing, Mon­tano de­clared: “It feels so good to be back. I missed you like crazy.”

Machel Mon­tano & Full Band, took the stage at ex­act­ly 12.45 am on Sat­ur­day, bring­ing back his sig­na­ture “Huy,” which sent the thou­sands in at­ten­dance in­to a fren­zy.

The stage front be­came even brighter as count­less fans held out their phones to record videos of the so­ca star, singing along like a choir as he belt­ed out his 2025 hit, Pardy. But as a man of the old-school par­ty era, he or­dered them to put away their phones, rolling back in­to his and Patrice Roberts’ rev­el­ry-in­duc­ing hit Like Yuh Self and De­stra Gar­cia’s Shake the Place.

It was hit af­ter hit, with his en­er­getic and flex­i­ble team of Monk Dancers bare­ly catch­ing their breath be­tween per­for­mances.

“I have so many songs to sing. I do not want to waste time talk­ing. It is just mu­sic!” he urged the crowd as they sang along to his 2014 hit, Hap­pi­est Man Alive.

The au­di­ence was in for a mu­si­cal treat as Mon­tano brought out Vin­cy pow­er­house Skin­ny Fab­u­lous, tal­ent­ed duo Full Blown, the King of Steam Yung Bred­da, and the US Vir­gin Is­lands’ vibes man Pumpa, who joined forces with the Monk Dancers for an eye­ball pop­ping per­for­mance.

By 12.19 am, every­one was “screw­ing the light­bulb,” danc­ing along­side the tra­di­tion­al In­di­an dancers as Machel, Dru­patee, and La­dy La­va per­formed their 2025 chut­ney so­ca hit, Pep­per Vine. Even La­dy La­va, the “Queen of Freaks,” re­ceived her share of love from the crowd as she had the ladies bub­bling to Ring Fin­ger, You Have a Gyal, and Bare Bounce.

While Machel was the main course, Voice was the ap­pe­tiz­er who got the show rolling, prov­ing that, al­though on­ly 32, he had a lengthy reper­toire of hits.

Kick­ing off his per­for­mance with High­er, a trib­ute to The Mighty Shad­ow, he im­me­di­ate­ly en­gaged the crowd. As he jumped on­to a speak­er to get clos­er to his fans, he com­ment­ed about whether he could stand on it, jok­ing that he did not want to end up like “Ly­ro” (Lyrikal), who had re­cent­ly fall­en while per­form­ing at an event. At one point, the gen­er­al ad­mis­sion crowd was chant­i­ng Voice’s name, un­will­ing to let his per­for­mance end.

Ear­li­er in the night, chut­ney-so­ca artiste Ravi B, his sis­ter Nisha B, and Kar­ma got the per­for­mances un­der­way, while GBM Nu­tron kept the pace go­ing, cre­at­ing a win­ing scene with his 2025 hit, One Piece.