I have a confession to make: 35 years ago I went to Panorama Semi-Finals. I didn't go to hear pan; I went to lime, drink and check girls (*SHOCK*). At that time, nobody under 25 would be caught dead in the Grandstand; the North Stand was the place to be. Yes, there was pan, but sorry, it was the background soundtrack for the lime. We were all Woodbrook boys, so when asked "Who yuh backing?" we replied, "Phase II!" "Invaders!" or "Starlift!" When any of "our" bands were on stage, we made real noise and got on stink. This wasn't music appreciation, this was pure tribal loyalty. Pan semis was as much or more a social event as a musical event. We may have passed through the panyards in the weeks before to hear the songs taking shape. But we weren't fanatics. We just knew they would deliver great music. It was at the finals that you went (if you went) to listen. Even if you were at a fete or somewhere else on Carnival Saturday, you still wanted to know who won, if "your" band got in...
It was around this time that that the Grandstand people started complaining about the North Stand. How they didn't understand music. How it was a "setta youths who doh care 'bout pan an' only coming for the lime". (GUILTY!). How they should shut down the North Stand. Let me tell you about the North Stand: we didn't have patience for musical niceties and subtlety. Heaven forbid you dared play something other than a popular song - that meant Sparrow, Kitchener, Blueboy, Explainer, Shadow. Or worse yet, the dreaded "own compositition" (unless you were Phase II). You could hear the grumbling rising from the North Stand: "Wha de ass is dat! But nobody ent know dat tune!" The North Stand was equally contemptuous for musical experimentation - the bands whose arrangements drifted so far from the tune as to render the song unrecognizable. "Dey feel is jazz or wha'?!" The announcers would have to plead with the North Stand to cool it, to stop the rhythm sections - yes, wherever two or more Trinis get together, there is a rhythm section (unless you were in the Grandstand for some strange reason).
Then a funny thing happened: the bands with the advanced arrangements and "own compositions" started winning. The commentators started sounding like highbrow academics. You felt like you had to have a music degree to follow what they were saying. The Grandstand took over. The bands started performing for the judges. And in the North Stand, the party continued…
Fast-forward a decade and more: I step off a plane from the frigid UK and head straight to the North Stand for Pan Semis. I haven't been back to Trinidad in many years. The atmosphere is electrifying; within an hour I meet practically everyone I know, everyone I wanted to see. Yes, there was pan, yes there was music. But I didn't really come for that. People asked "Who yuh backing?". I replied: "Phase II, of course!" "Invaders, of course!", "Starlift, of course!" We would discuss the merits and demerits of the various bands and arrangers, all the while bareback and knocking back serious quantities of Carib. The North Stand was alive. Alive with energy, alive with friends, alive with music.
Fast-forward two decades from this. In 2011, I spent all day moving between the Grandstand, North Stand and the "Greens". This was the last year they allowed free access between the North Stand and the Greens. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. No apologies: what was taking place in the North Stand and the Greens was far more interesting than anything that was taking place on the Savannah stage. New musical forms were spontaneously erupting right before my eyes. Everywhere you turned there were riddim sections with brass. Yes brass! Brass we thought had been banished from Soca forever. These riddim sections were rearranging all the popular songs on the spot: Machel, Iwer, Destra, Shurwayne - fitting brass into impossible spaces in the music. I can never forget the look of astonishment on Kees Dieffenthaller's face as he descended the North Stand steps and saw an entire crowd jumping to his "Wotless" being played entirely on PHI Pans. Or a few minutes later Machel Montano taking in Iwer George onstage with a riddim section, leveling the Greens with and unamplified "Come To Meh". I remember passing through a group of East Indian women who were composing their own Chutney Soca within earshot of a blaring sound system outside a corporate tent. It was actually very good. I asked them if they had ever written anything before. They said no. I gave them the number of a top chutney producer and told them to contact him. As I walked away, I saw them throw away the paper in a fit of giggles - they probably though I was on scenes. Trinidad & Tobago - yuh sweet, yes! In every corner something was happening. Yes it was chaos, yes it was unstructured, yes, there were problems. Like the distant early warning of a tsunami of change yet to come, the bass waves from the combined Greens sound systems just rolled straight through the North Stand and jumbied the bands on stage.
By all means let us try to impose some order on this rude child of the North Stand. If anything, we need to find a way to include the Greens; to make pan central to Greens experience. But I'm tired of hearing from all the Sherrif John Browns - the "kill it before it grow" posse. A new seed is being planted, the same seed that's been growing for 35 years. And if we nurture it, maybe, just maybe, we can snatch pan out of the hands of "de judges and dem" and return it to its rightful place among the people.
