I Am Legend II - The Aftermath

Date: Saturday 30th May 2009

Place: Queen's Park Savannah
Cost: Unknown (I not too sure, scalpers were selling VIP tickets at $200)

It's been AGES since I have been to an outdoor concert. I mean real years, like since my late teen years. But when I heard that big black dutty Shabba was coming to our shores, I said this was a concert I HAD to be at! I have NEVER before seen Shabba in concert and I was certainly not going to miss this one, and then earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to get an All Access Pass to the concert :)

After being told earlier that the concert was scheduled to start at 9:00pm, we left home just after 10, and got to the venue (Savannah) around 10:30pm. After parking in the VIP/VVIP area we were told that we had to walk to the “General Admission” entrance which is where we would be ‘banded’ as we had the “All Access” passes.

While parking we heard performances by General Grant and Peter C Lewis, and I was thankful that my timing had allowed me to miss the latter.

Getting into the venue was easy enough, although there could have been some signage at earlier points to identify the parking areas. We produced our tickets at the gate, got banded and then went on our way.

The backstage area was a very big space and we walked through to meet our peeps in the VIP and VVIP area.

Shortly after making our way to the VIP area, Ziggy Rankin made his was onto the stage and sang some of his tunes for the crowd.

The show moved effortlessly from Ziggy to the overly talkative DJ’s.

I took the time to walk thorugh the General Admission area which was already filled with people and people were still at that time streaming into the venue.

Shortly before midnight Wayne Wonder (who by the way pronounces his name as Wayne and NOT Wayne-ee as I’ve been accustomed to all these years) took the stage. Dressed in jeans, striped shirt and matching jacket Wayne took the crowd on a Joyride through his many hits, and they were appreciative.

While waiting for Buju’s band to set up on stage we were err…”entertained” by DJ Dangerous Robin who was another overly talkative DJ. Thankfully, that didn’t go on for too long.

One of Buju’s hype men (whose name I missed) then performed for a brief spell before the man himself graced the stage.

Buju came on at about 1:20am amidst endless screams from the crowd. Dressed in a long sleeved striped shirt and khaki pants, Buju then proceeded to totally destroy the crowd Til Shiloh and back.


Giving a very energetic performance Buju went from hit after hit after hit, it was like listening to a CD “Best of Buju – Ever” and the crowd sang along tune after tune after tune.


Buju brought on Wayne Wonder and the two of them sang one of my favorite tunes (that takes me back to Bishop's Form 3 bazaar) Bonafide Love (“But I Love you in every waayyyyy”).

As Buju bid the crowd good night and before you could even take a breather (and go use the bathroom), amidst some Jamaican flag waving stage performers, big black dutty Shabba appeared on stage promptly at 2:30am.

And the crowd went insane.

Coming out in a gold brocade jacket, green fedora and white pants, The Dancehall Emperor took what was left of the crowd after Buju, put them back together just to mash dem up all over again.

The place was wet. Shabba’s antics had the crowd entertained from beginning to end. From Wicked Inna Bed to Ting a Ling to Mr. Loverman to Housecall and Telephone Love, we got Shabba's Greatest Hits 2009 version. Shabba showed the crowd that his waist was indeed still ready and he was very able.

Shabba performs "Mr. Loverman"

Towards the end of his performance Mr. Loverman brought on our very own Denise “Saucy Wow” Belfon on stage and together they brought the house down and closed the curtains on the I Am Legend Concert II at about 3:40am.

BAR/FOOD
There were several bars throughout the venue.

The first bar I encountered was the bar in the Backstage/Artiste area which was a pay bar (which seemed a bit odd to me).
With the All Access band however, you could walk between areas. In the VVIP area you could access free drink and food (bake and shark and corn flavoured water).


The bar in the VIP area was free food only (more bake and shark and corn flavoured water).
Decent service form the Angostura bar.

BATHROOMS


For a minute I thought there were Andy Loos in the VVIP area, but it was just SWMCOL. Hmmm...is this a sign of things to come for Carnival 2010? Unfortunately because of the long lines I was not able to properly macco...err...observe the bathrooms other than from the outside.


The worst part of the concert was afterwards in trying to leave the venue.
It was a free for all with people driving on the pavement of the Savannah to leave! Real ridiculous. It took us about 40 minutes to get out of the Savannah and I think if there was better traffic control/police presence this could have been much better.


Overall this concert was GREAT! The flow of this concert was smooth and clean. No long waits between performances and EXCELLENT performers.

"About John" - The Media Launch

Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009

Time: 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Location: The Coco Lounge – Private Lounge

Well I sure allyuh know by now that John Legend will be coming to Trinidad on Thursday 18th June 2009. (the night before the Labour Day holiday). And well, if yuh didn't know, now yuh do.

I attended the media launch for the John Legend concert, "about John" on Thursday of this week. The launch was good. The media release indicated a time of 6:00 to 9:00pm and shortly after half 6 the MC, Adrian Don Mora started the proceedings.

We were introduced to the sponsors B-mobile and Toyota. B-mobile has given the concert the "Green Light" (haha) and hinted that there will be ticket giveaways. (keeping fingers crossed that I win a ticket, or two)

We were then introduced to Mr. Ivan Berry, a native of St. Kitts who is also working with Mr. Ian Wiltshire (the "Glow" and "Mad Hatters " man).

Mr. Ivan Berry

Mr. Berry spoke about Caribbean artistes having an experience outside of the typical Calypso, Soca music. To this end Krystal Khane, a local artist will be opening for John Legend.

Another artist who will be performing on the night is Shazelle. Shazelle may not be known to many, but I remember seeing her on Synergy nights when she debuted "Elevator" and "Pick Me Up". Take the time and check her out on My Space and Facebook.

Mr. Robert Souza

Up next was Mr. Robert Souza, Endorsement Lawyer to John Legend who spoke about John Legend's charity work with the Show Me Campaign.

There was a ticket giveaway and one lucky person (not me) won two VIP Gold tickets to the concert.

Tickets for the show are available at the following locations:
General Admission tickets cost $180 and are available from:
Francis Fashion and Shoe Locker outlets nationwide
Just Cds, Port of Spain
Limited Edition, Arima
Bobby's Bar, Curepe

VIP Gold tickets cost $350 and are available from:
Bootlegger's, Trincity Mall
T.G.I. Fridays, nationwide
Select Francis Fashion and Shoe Locker outlets

Cloud 9 VVIP tickets will be available strictly from Committee Members. (Rumour has it that these are going for $800 or thereabouts)

Mr. Ivan Berry and Mr. Ian Wiltshire

This will be John's second visit to Trinidad, the first being sometime that I cannot remember now, but I do remember that he put Rhianna in the shade and that I didn't go then.

I am definitely NOT missing this one!

For more information you can check out the Facebook group for the concert.

Niala Maharaj - Like Heaven: The Review

In my downtime, I am a very avid reader.

I like books that are an easy nice read with plenty pictures (I keed).

Some of the authors who are in my very exclusive mini library are John Grisham, James Patterson, Eric Jerome Dickey (who I met in September 2007), Nora Roberts, Sophie Kinsella (I hated the movie version of Confessions of a Shopaholic), Dan Brown (his books got kinda predictable on me and I fell asleep on Da Vinci Code 3 times), J.K Rowling (of course), Marfie ;) and I could go on but I'll stop.

I am not a huge fan of West Indian literature, but when I came across this copy of "Like Heaven" by Niala Maharaj I read the inside cover and thought I'd give it a borrow.

This is the story of Ved Sant, an Indian from Port of Spain, Trinidad — a ramshackle carnival culture, which is suddenly becoming oil and gas rich. Sant has a gift for business, and is an enlightened boss. But, inevitably, the pressures of family and success have an impact on his personal life, and lead to tragedy.

This book was EXCELLENT! I laughed, sniffled and was at the edge of my seat (bed) at times. I read the book in its entirety in no time at all. I am usually a fast reader and this book was no exception. It did not drag at all.

I lent it to my mom who only recently finished it (and now I need to pay late fees) but she too enjoyed the book.

This book gets 5 stars out of 5 from me (and the readers on Amazon as well) and I would recommend this book to anyone.

Showtime Media Launch - The Aftermath...

As Saucy reported yesterday, last night I attended the media launch of Showtime Trinidad at the Alchemy Nightclub.

My main peeve with this launch was the time.
The media launch was scheduled to begin at 8:00pm. I got to Alchemy (which is a real nice place by the way, I have to go and boogie down there sometime) just about 8:00pm. I didn't want to miss out on anything just in case they started early, but I didn't need to worry, cause in true Trini fashion the media launch started an hour and a half later.

Now even though I keep saying "media launch" it was really more like a "Friends and Well Wishers Launch" cause as far as I could see/identify (with my untrained eye) there wasn't really much media personnel there. The usual suspects were missing, like a Peter Ray Blood, David Wears or even a Triniscene. There was also no information about the band handed out to the "media" before or after the actual launch.

Anyhoo, I getting ahead of myself a bit. At 9:20 when there was a decent size crowd, the launch began.

Ms. Odeka O'Neil was the presenter for the evening. She gave an overview of the growth and history of the band in terms of where they came from to where they are now. Showtime Trinidad we were told, has no one manager, but instead 6 team leaders.
The team members then unveiled their banner "Showtime Trinidad - Carnival Is We".



After this Ms. O'Neil introduced the Synergy Soca Star winner Richard "Chynee" Valentine who performed his hit tune "Wanna be Like". It was my first time seeing him perform live and I was impressed.

After Chynee's performance we were then handed over to the PRO Mr. Damian Leech.
Mr. Leech then went on to introduce each member of the Showtime Team. (Please excuse me if my spelling of names and so on are off, I received no info to verify what I heard and took note of).
Ricardo Lewis who is the Production and Road Manager, Rhoda Lewis (his wife) who is also a PRO, Kevon Enille (I did not catch Kevon's title), Denicia is the Model Manager and has been the face of Showtime in the past, Kendal who is a Production Something, and finally, Mr. Godfrey Enille who is their mentor (and budding photographer).

The members of the team then unveiled the name of their presentation for Carnival 2010 "Matrix". After a vote of thanks by Mr. Lewis, the media launch was over. It took all of 15 minutes.


I did take the opportunity after the official launch to speak with PRO Damian Leech. Showtime Trinidad is looking at a band of around 800 persons, although they are not yet sure of the number of sections. Keeping in mind the economic climate in the country, the band is looking at having starting prices backline costumes at $2000.00. There will be backline and frontline costumes. I understand that The Harvard Section is also to be part of Showtime Trinidad.

Overall I think there should have been more information available to the media, but what I did like is that the band is made up of young people. I am looking forward to seeing their presentation of costumes for Carnival 2010.

Summit Village and Waterfront Project...

Yesterday afternoon, I visited the Summit Village (located at the Waterfront) which is part of the whole tantana for the participants and visitors for the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

The place looks REALLY nice, here are some pics.

HAPPY EASTER!

This cutie was part of the Easter Egg Hunt we had today at home.

The Easter egg Hunt was losts of fun and the kids had a ball.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL.

Summit Preparations...

The Waterfront

Painting everything in sight

Beetham Berm

Cameras on the Beetham

More cameras at the Hilton

IP Mas 2009 - The Aftermath...from costume collection to Carnival Tuesday...

One week ago today…

Carnival Saturday

After collecting only my basic costume the day before (bra, belt, accessories) I ventured to the mas camp today to collect my headpiece and backpack for my section Natural Mystic.

Reaching down to the Island People Distribution Centre (IPDC) the scene before was similar to what greeted me on Friday…chaos.

But like the day before I didn’t go to the main entrance, and I went around to the side and told the girl I came to collect my backpack and headpiece.

What she brought out for me had me in shock. A headpiece with WHITE and not cream feathers was handed to me. I asked her if this was the correct headpiece and she assured me that it was.

I was then told that my backpack was not ready but that they would be delivering backpacks to SOME people ( I was not one of them). The young lady took my number to call me when the backpacks were delivered later that night.

At this point I wasn’t angry or worried, just upset that I would have to again make my way to the IPDC the next day, Carnival Sunday!

On my way to the car I try on the headpiece only to notice that it is the MOST UNCOMFORTABLE headpiece I have ever had in my 18 or so years of playing mas. Grrr…

I got back home and continued my boots.

At about 7 o’clock that night my phone rang and it was the same young lady from the mas camp telling me that up to that point no backpacks had been delivered and I would get my backpack delivered to me the next day.

Again at 8 o’clock my phone rings and it’s the same young lady telling me that she heard that there were NO backpacks…like NONE AT ALL…NO backpacks were made and we would get a refund! At that point I didn’t want any refund, I wanted my damn backpack that I paid my so and so money for! Or I want to be in a next section!

It was at this point the panic started.

I made some calls and then I heard the talk was that Island People forgot to order the material for the backpacks, then they tried to source it locally and it was the wrong colour and after trying to source it externally, the material wasn’t standing p to the hot glue!

After hearing this piece of information, I forgot all about my boots (sorry to my customers who I had waiting) and headed down to the IPDC. Doh ask me what I had plan to do eh, but I wasn’t going to be violent, just to get some answers.

I got to the IPDC and asked to speak with Mr. Marlon Grant aka Hot Dog, cause that’s the only person I know in IP and I had seen him earlier in the day. Hot Dog came out and I spoke with him telling him what I heard. Hot Dog told me to have a seat and he would look into it for me. After waiting for about 40 minutes, and saw neither hide nor hair of Hot Dog, I left.

At this point in time, I was ready to cry. I could not imagine playing mas without my FULL costume, and I was ready to get my money back and go find some other band to play with.

Carnival Sunday

WHOO!HOO! 99% of my boots are done (just have to finish yours Megs) and it’s time for me to go collect my Natural Mystic backpack.

I head down AGAIN to the IPDC at Jean Pierre with my brother. While walking into Jean Pierre I notice a young lady walking out with what looks like a knockoff Natural Mystic backpack. I asked her if that for Natural Mystic, and she confirmed that it was, but they were also giving out some backpacks with wings. (huh?)

I get to the entrance and is more chaos with endless fresh warder Yankees trying to buy costumes at the last minute.

The gates were closed but I told the security that I was told to come back today and he directed me to the mess inside. I stood in the err…’line’ for about 2 minutes before realising that made no sense as there seemed to be no kinda order happening at that point.

My brother then pointed out the self same Marlon Grant/Hot Dog from the night before. I approached Hot Dog and he recognized me and apologised for the night before and promptly went in the back and brought out the knockoff Natural Mystic backpack for me.

My brother watched me, I watched him and we said “Samaroo’s!” I ended up on Carnival Sunday in Tulip and Samaroo’s spending over $500.00 to make my backpack presentable. Forget that I spent $500 extra for my headpiece and $900 for my backpack.

Carnival Monday

How horrible is it that I have to go back to Barataria to find a pair of sneakers cause the boots that I bought to play mas Monday are the wrong size? Tres horrible.

I got home and back to St. James in about an hour though, gave my boots a silver spray and called that lame…I mean George.

How terrible it is to be known as the Boots Woman and have to wear some sneakers that dry rot on you and falling apart on the road while you chipping? Tres terrible.

The band’s designated meeting time was 10:00am and we left home just about 11:00am and caught up with them just in front of Adam Smith Square.

The band was big. I haven’t played with a big band since the one time I ever played with Poison. The band headed to Victoria Square and on approaching that judging point, we were greeted by “Antz! Island People like Antz!” That was the IP tune to cross the stage.

Even though “Wild Antz” was not my song of choice (I preferred “Bachannal”), by the end of the day, that was my theme song, complete with the Wild Antz dance. (watch the video that shows on Synergy every other minute).

After Victoria Square we headed down to Independence Square and then up to the Savannah. We crossed the Savannah stage and by 3:00pm we were more or less done.

One quick look at the time had us hustling to get lunch, as our booklet said that the food trucks would be closed off at 4:00pm. Lunch was a mess. My brother had to hang on to the truck with our chits to get the soggiest, most unimpressive pelau ever. I ate because I was hungry and after a brief stop, we went to catch up to the band (who had not stopped).

I took the opportunity to leave the band at this point because I still had to do my Tuesday boots, cover and decorate my corset, and fix my headpiece and backpack.

Headpiece - After

Backpack - After

I got home and from 4:30pm to just after midnight, I spent the time doing my boots, ketching my royal to cut the headpiece (my dad had to use a hacksaw blade to cut the damn thing!), fixing my backpack, decorating my corset, making a bag to match my costume and doing my nails. I got to bed at about 1:00am.

Carnival Tuesday

My mother woke me up at 5:30am and I had my bath, uploaded some Monday pics to Facebook and got ready for my makeup appointment (my aunt does my makeup for me every year).

We got dressed, and left the house at about 8:00am and met the band just in front of Grillers on the Avenue. The band looking pretty…everybody looking nice!! Yours truly looking special…like an Individual! :D

The band on Tuesday was huge-erer than on Monday and with the 16 trucks definitely reminded me of the days of Poison. The band crossed in sections at Adam Smith (again to Antz), made their way to Victoria Square where there were no sections OR judges, then we made our way down to Independence Square.

After having some beautiful sun all day, we were rained upon while downtown. And as the rains came down all hell broke loose, and this thing called sections were forgotten. The first part of the band was kinda in sections but in the back where my section was, we had no music to cross the stage and had to sing “Tusty” to cross. Yes SING, cause by that time the trucks done long gone.

But wait! How I could forget the IP Security/Rope Handlers? What rhymes with hoggish? IP Security.

Being Frontline and walking around with a backpack I tried to keep out of most persons way by standing as close to the perimeter of the band and not in the middle for my backpack to be getting all up in people’s face.

I was shoved and pushed by Security while we were downtown and had to tell a couple of them a few choice words cause a little more again they mighta mashup my backpack that I did done spend my money on.

So after crossing the stage downtown, I attempted to get a box of food. Tuesday was dry Spanish Rice, with Chinese Noodles and Salty Fish.

I paused to eat at Woodford Sqaure, (Stop for your masqueraders to eat? What is that?) and took the time afterwards to use a porta potty and make some fixes to my costume. Chipped to meet the band which was still on Frederick Street and after being stuck their for a while, the hubby and I left the band to go meet our boys who were waiting up at the Savannah to see us. Met my boys and then went back to meet the band.

We reach to the Savannah and again…no sections. It wasn’t until we were nearly up on the stage that any attempt was made to put the band into sections, but there were of course people in between and not in the right section. Frontlines in the band were no different to backline, neither were Individuals. I saw the Dream Section Leader having to fight up with the same hoggish security for them to let her through to lead the section. IP needs to fix that.

At the Savannah stage my aunts and I spread the ashes of my late aunt Margaret, as this was one of her wishes.

After the Savannah it was chaos again with part of the band (first 2 trucks) by QRC roundabout, while the balance of the trucks were spread between TGI and SAGICOR with masqueraders all over the route. When the rest of the trucks caught up with the first two, the masqueraders had to run to catch up with the band like we were Richard Thompson trying to catch Usain Bolt.

The band then made its way around the Savannah, up and around Wildflower Park and down Elizabeth Street.

*yawn* Story nearly done doh worry...I tired too...

At this point the day almost down and the sun is setting. I walk ahead to St. James to drop my backpack and meet the band to chip down to the Savannah for the After Party.

Got back, met the band, chipped down to the Stadium and…no After Party. We tiredly chipped back to St. James while seeing scores of people still heading to the Stadium.

Overall my Carnival with Island People was real jamishness and I had a time despite the Security, lack of special Frontline treatment and the running down of food.

Would I play with them next year? Let me see what Kuchela brings nah, and then we go talk.