The most asked question of masqueraders who had strayed from their bands en route to the Queen's Park Savannah on Carnival Tuesday had to be "What band are you from?" Simply because the bands, Poison, Legends, Harts, Barbarossa and Funtasia, were similarly costumed in heavily decorated bikinis, not to mention the beads, this was the year of "beads". Never have I seen so many yards and yards of beads in every colour of the rainbow, hanging from every part of the costume and body.
We walked for miles from parking outside of the Archbishop's Chapel on Flood Street through the meeting of Minshall's black and gold of "This is Hell" in the Picton/Woodford Street area of the savannah; to Hart's and Masquerade exiting the savannah at Queen's Park Hotel; north of the grandstand stage swallowing carbon-monoxide fumes from deafening music trucks, to Trini Revellers lining up on the east side of the stage; and into Leslie Boiselle's beautiful 4th placed Queen of Carnival Costume, Sunset on Glacier Mountain from Funtasia at the top of Frederick Street. Continued into Legends on upper Charlotte Street; Poison on Park Street; and Barbarossa lower down Frederick Street; all heading for judging in the Big Yard. Somewhere in between all of these beaded bikini clad bodies, were the sombre sailors of Neal & Massy All Stars Steelband, and one or two bands of oily devils.
Needless to say, conversation centered for a while on costs of these itsy bitsy pieces of costumes. Imagine $900 plus for a few pieces of Hart's costume (nothing like the days of their late mother, Lil's well clothed sections) plus $200 for the drinks cart, and not one live music band, so much so that David Stewart, Charge D'Affaires at the American Embassy, although an ex-pat, knew enough about Carnival to leave them and join Poison on Park Street "because I like Surface". It was much more understandable to have spent $850 (men) and $950 (women) in Poison's "Aztec" franchised section with drinks truck, live music, and food on Tuesday.
Rumour has it that every single one of the big guns had been left with costumes on their hands, people had paid the downpayment of $300 and were unable to come up with the remaining five or six hundred dollars on collection day. One of Poison's leaders says otherwise: "We were sold out, there is every year a ten percent who do not pick up their costumes, this year it may have been a little higher but on the other hand the Carnival week-end demand for costumes was also higher."
Harts was one of the bands where it is reported many were attempting to get rid of their down-payment slips and costumes. The band uses strictly deejays, which says another bandleader who pays more than $100,000 per live band "is a substantial saving when there is no live band. Five deejays playing the same music solves the problem of what is known as the 'dead zone', the place where masqueraders hear both rhythms and would not know which to dance to. Five deejays also eliminate choice, which could lead to problems of migration from the official sectional line up to that part of the band where you find the music you wish to jump or chip to. Ultimately, the masquerader should enjoy himself no matter at what cost to the organisation of the band."
Seems that the children's costumes is where we must now look for some degree of imaginative design, colour, and actual costuming. Speaking of which, the youngsters were certainly more disciplined than their elders as they moved on stage Saturday morning, followed the instructions of the National Carnival Bands Association's officials, and jumped once across and off the stage so that the Committee chairman could proudly point to his watch at closing time of 2.25p.m., more than thirty minutes ahead of handing over time to Pan Trinbago for their Panorama Finals.
And therein lies another Carnival 2001 tale. It was my first time on the drag for the Panorama Finals, and it could have been Ash Wednesday at Maracas or Manzanilla as thousands of people milled around on the gravel and grass surfaces. The constants put it down to the fact that the television stations were not carrying live broadcasts. Friends knew where to meet through the number of the various vendor booths. At 1.30 a.m. in the morning, the cooks in Lima's bake and shark were still elbow deep in basins of floury dough, as they could not make them fast enough to accommodate patrons, some of whom gave up in disgust.
I found it passing strange that the steelbands performed on the stretch just prior to going on stage. This could surely lead to peaking at that final practice and then a flop on stage. Wouldn't the last practice be better off somewhere at the top of Frederick Street or at the old Queen's Park Hotel.
And as the Dimanche Gras dragged on at 2.30 on Carnival Monday morning, I decided from the comfort of my bed, that the ten points given to calypsonians for presentation, should be minused if all those unnecessary and longwinded pre-presentations went longer than a prescribed time, before a calypsonian would start his/her performance. As one of the television presenters rightly said: if you are already selected to perform in the finals, surely your song can carry itself without all these theatrics which took the show to that unearthly hour.