Entertainment Galore

If you are putting on a show, an exhibition or live entertainment of any sort, let us know about it and we'll mention it in Entertainment Galore.
Remember to tell us who, what, where, when and how to get there, admission price and anything else you can offer by way of information.
If you've seen a show, found a live entertainment venue, cinema, museum, art gallery, theatre, amusement park or any other entertaining place to spend time ashore, tell us all about it!

If you are involved in organizing a Carnival or other special event, we'd love to hear about it and, if you like, you can keep readers updated with news of the preparations for the Big Event.
We will list as much information as we can. We will publish descriptions of events which are likely to be repeated at a future date, so that you may make a note of them if you plan to be in their locality in the right season.
Where an annual event is concerned, we'll be glad to receive your account of a previous years' visit, which may give readers some idea of what may be expected - for example:

From Carl and Mary Heckrotte aboard 'Camryka', in Trinidad, West Indies:
5th July 1999

"Yesterday we went to St. Peter's Day at Carenage, on the northwestern coast of Trinidad.
St. Peter is the patron saint of fishermen and, on this day each year, the priests come to bless the fishing fleet. Then the whole village celebrates with a sort of "fair".
We saw lots of booths for "gambling", using strange but innovative ways of setting up games with the supplies that were on hand.

One game was called "Over or Under" and involved placing a bet on a roll of the dice being over, or under, a total of seven.
The board was a simple piece of plywood with three painted sections, at one end, the board was marked "Over", at the opposing end "Under", and there was an unmarked middle section to roll the dice on.

Another "booth" was a Ring Toss. Sitting on little blocks of wood, inside an area fenced off with wooden planks, were a bottle of rum, a can of pigeon peas, a bottle of dish detergent and some other such
practical and useful items.

Another sort of game was made with a board with little holes drilled all over it, like a pegboard. Little pieces of paper, with numbers written on them, were twisted and inserted in the holes.
Customers paid their money and selected 3 twists. They got prizes which
corresponded with numbers revealed by opening the twists of paper, hair barrettes, lipsticks, cigarettes, spoons, etc.
For drawing 3 blanks, the customer got a picture of Haile Selassie, or some cute chick or sexy hunk.

There were quite a few pan bands playing, in competition for an award. They were really quite good, and we just hadn't expected, in this setting, to hear "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" played beautifully, with a calypso beat, and complete with folks dancing down the street!
Food stalls were even more numerous than the gambling booths.
In addition to French fries and fried chicken, there were great
steaming pots of corn soup, plates of 'buss-up-shut', bake and shark with green mango chutney, and philourrie."

Sounds like a thoroughly good day out to us! Anyone else enjoyed being part of a local event anywhere who would like to describe their experiences, we'd love to hear about it. While we wait to hear from you, here's a another little piece about being entertained in Trinidad:

On Friday, 1st October1999, we went to see the steel band, Pan Plus, play live in Sails Restaurant at Power Boats, Chaguaramas, Trinidad. The four members of the band all hail from Tunapuna on the east side of the island. They had been together three years and clearly enjoy playing in each other's company.

Pan Plus are 'regulars' at Sails. In common with many other pan bands, this outfit like their calypso but they also have a much more varied repertoire than is usual, including several good original compositions and some equally good arrangements of songs made popular by artists as diverse as Sting, Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack.

The only one who remains on the same instrument throughout the show is drummer Henry Williams, who gives his age as sixty-something", (twice as good as thirty-something, surely!).
The remaining three instruments, six-bass (full-sized and surprisingly mellow oil drums), tenor and guitar pans, are played variously by Winston Joseph, 42, who is also a vocalist, composer and arranger, and Dennis Williams, 49.

The vocals are shared by Aldwyn Brooks, 53, who also takes his turn variously on the tenor and guitar pans. The band include material by David Rudder and other local Calypsonians in their programme and, whilst the vocals may not be particularly strong, the phrasing is spot-on and the band distinguishes itself from the run-of-the-mill by displaying great subtlety.

There is a depth and breadth to their sound which is surprising, given that the entire complement of instruments are played by percussion (striking one object or surface with another). Several times in the course of the evening it was easy to believe that a double bass or bass guitar had been sneaked in, so mellow was the bass sound, and the band skillfully softened and hushed the sound at one moment and worked up to a crescendo in the next.

Often, being no great fan of the pan as an instrument, I find myself wondering, when a pan player demonstrates great skill in playing, why he doesn't use that skill on an instrument with more scope. In the case of these gentlemen, whilst I have no doubt that they would do very well on other instruments, I have to say that they managed to improve my opinion of pan itself. In this uncluttered and tuneful performance they demonstrated what is possible when a group of people decide to play together in a mutually enhancing manner, rather than competing with one another, as younger musicians are sometimes inclined to do, or playing in spite of one another, as is also common, especially at the big pan events.

The camaraderie between them was obvious as they all enjoyed a Guinness together at the end of a thoroughly enjoyable performance. Pan Plus regularly perform at 'Sails' as well as at other venues around the island.

Linnet Woods for MarineZine

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