Pans Galore

Today we celebrate my birthday (and Norwegian Mother's Day!) with a parade of pans, steel-bands, at the "Panorama" semifinals. It's at the Queen's Park, Savannah stadium, in Port-of-Spain. This time we take "Ian Taxi" to town. He gives us a good, instructional route in, good advice, and a good price.

In the Grandstand (cost: $TT100 or Norw. krone,100!) we get a good view of the bands, truck-loads of oildrums, now converted to colorful, well-tuned percussion instruments. The players, young and old, have been composing, learning-by-ear, and practicing hard for this yearly competition and parade concert.

The rythmns are made for movement. You can't sit still. The decibel level with 12 to 20 tinny tenor pans and twice as many huge bass oil-drums is deafening. No sound systems necessary. And I get the point with all the ear-plugged people walking about. We don't really appreciate the finer distinctons between the different melodies or bands. How do the judges tell them apart?

Well, I guess Hardanger fiddling all sounds the same to a Trini Pan-man!