Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

In what was the cul­mi­na­tion of an in­tense show­down of steel and skill in To­ba­go on Sun­day night, the Katzen­jam­mers Steel Or­ches­tra took the Medi­um Bands Panora­ma tro­phy for an­oth­er year, se­cur­ing a his­toric hat-trick of vic­to­ries.

The Black Rock-based pow­er­house de­liv­ered a com­mand­ing per­for­mance of The Mighty Spar­row’s Ly­ing Ex­cus­es to clinch its third con­sec­u­tive ti­tle at the Pa­rade Grounds—a buck­et list item its arranger, Kersh Ram­sey, had set last year.

Last night, he de­scribed the win as a dream come true.

“Yes, we know what it takes to win a Panora­ma, but this one was spe­cial and much need­ed. I love my play­ers, and right now I’m feel­ing to cry, be­cause to bring a hat trick for Panora­ma is not some­thing easy to do,” he said.

“We did it. This is what we came to do. With­in the process was a lot of sleep­less nights, ded­i­ca­tion, and 24 hours of mu­sic go­ing through your brain; you can’t even fo­cus on your per­son­al life. I’m grate­ful we are able to keep the ti­tle in To­ba­go. I hope To­ba­go is proud.”

With an elec­tri­fy­ing dis­play of mu­si­cal mas­tery and dra­ma, Katzen­jam­mers scored 281 points, fend­ing off fierce com­pe­ti­tion from Pan El­ders Steel Or­ches­tra, who de­liv­ered an im­pres­sive per­for­mance of Mih Lover to se­cure sec­ond place with 279 points.

The bat­tle for third place was just as in­tense, with NGC Cou­va Joy­lan­ders and Pam­beri Steel Or­ches­tra both de­liv­er­ing en­er­getic, crowd-pleas­ing per­for­mances to tie at 275 points. Their per­for­mances were among the high­lights of the evening, but nei­ther could close the gap on the top two.

The bat­tle for the ti­tle was in­tense, but To­ba­go’s dom­i­nance was un­de­ni­able, a fact that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said spoke vol­umes about To­ba­go’s pan ex­cel­lence.

Au­gus­tine said, “I’m very proud of the work that Katzen­jam­mers has done, and what’s in­ter­est­ing is the first and sec­ond-place arrangers are both from To­ba­go, which speaks to the qual­i­ty of our pan pro­gramme on the is­land.

To­ba­go’s oth­er fi­nal­ist, Dix­ieland, placed eighth with 268 points, per­form­ing Long Time. Though they fell short of the ti­tle, the band said the jour­ney to the fi­nals proved their strength.

To­ba­go West MP Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis said she felt ex­cit­ed and hap­py.

She said, “It’s good to see them do it for a third time. Kersh has been do­ing out­stand­ing work over the years. He has been very dili­gent. Tonight is a tes­ti­mo­ny of all the hard work he has put in. And, any­one who says it’s an un­fair judge­ment, the proof is in the pud­ding.”

Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, who is the man­ag­er for Katzen­jam­mers, an­nounced that she had plans to en­cour­age the team to move up to the large bands cat­e­go­ry con­sid­er­ing its growth over the years.

Mean­while, Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dal Mitchell said he was sat­is­fied and im­pressed by the way the medi­um-band Panora­ma cat­e­go­ry fi­nals had de­vel­oped since it was re­lo­cat­ed to To­ba­go.

He al­so spoke of the eco­nom­ic re­turns the To­ba­go tourism sec­tor had record­ed, as well as the im­proved lo­gis­tics of the event’s fi­nal com­pe­ti­tion in To­ba­go.