Africa wins in Rainorama Carnival
The sun was out in all its glory on Ash Wednesday after a rain streaked Carnival and there was no happier mas’ man than Brian McFarlane who learnt that he had won the coveted “Band Of The Year” title for the third successive year.
It was also a great year for pregnant soca star Fay-Ann Lyons-Alvarez who won the “Road March” title with Meet Superblue to add to her Soca Monarch, Groovy Soca and People’s Choice titles.
The baby which is due next month will have a million dollar mom: Fay-Ann, daughter of soca supremo Super Blue and wife of leading artiste Bunji Garlin, would have notched over TT$1.5 million in prize money in the space of a few days.
She will enter the record books as the only woman in the family way to have achieved such a feat.
McFarlane, a bandleader more in the mould of Peter Minshall than George Bailey who upset the carnival applecart with an African band in 1957, won the George Bailey “large band” title with his overpowering presentation, Africa, Her People. Her Glory, Her Tears, a classic tour de force of the tragic continent which blew away the competition. In the rain.
McFarlane, who has eschewed the fashionable bikini and beads costumes, won in 2007 with Earth and last year with India. His band captured the King and Queen of Carnival titles on Sunday night.
He told reporters that his 2010 band would be based on a local theme and hinted that it might be launched in Tobago.
Trini Revellers came second with the colourful Sweet T&T and Legacy was third with Kingdom of the Dragon.
The last time there was that much rain during Carnival was probably in 1972 when the Government took the unprecedented step of postponing the celebrations to May because of a polio outbreak earlier that year.
It was the inspiration for the late Lord Kitchener’s timeless calypso, Rainorama.
Ronnie and Caro won in the medium band category with Bakkanal.
Former Tourism Minister Howard Chin Lee, in his new incarnation as chairman of the National Carnival Commission (NCC), which had a budget of TT$120 million to organise competitions not only in Port of Spain but throughout the country, was happy with the way things went.
But in case anyone disagreed he added “there are certain things that I can improve on”.
“Next year will be bigger and better”.
An estimated 40,000 visitors came to see a wet carnival while Rio had over 700,000 visitors.
Do these figures or the mas’ qualify our celebrations as the greatest show on earth?