Sweet soca

EXPECT to see the traditional line-up of shareholders from the Headliners calypso tent heading to Bushy Park on July 25 for this year’s Party Monarch and Sweet Soca competitions.
However, it will not be the same in the line-up heading to the Gymnasium of the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex or to Kensington Oval for the Pic-O-De-Crop semi-finals or finals on July 22 and 29, respectively.
The performances from Mikey, Blood, Lorenzo and Mr Dale were, as expected, the most outstanding when the tent appeared before judges for both the Pic-O-De-Crop and the Party Monarch judges on Thursday night at the Party Stand on the Harbour Road.
Starting 45 minutes late, the competition finally got under way with Blank doing his social commentary Things That Should Be Banned. The song spoke to a number of the ills in society that should be banned and those in the calypso arena that should not.
He was followed by Basil with his melodic uptempo song Me Darling, in which he promises his darling he would do anything for her. I am not sure he did enough with this song to get the nod of the judges.
Next up was Windchaser with a very well executed social commentary song called Seeds, which dealt with a number of seeds that were sown by various people, including the late Prime Minister David Thompson.
And because of Thompson’s love for farming, which was also highlighted in the song, Windchaser climaxed her song with a gift of a seed to Thompson’s widow Mara, to be planted in her garden in memory of her late husband and former prime minister of Barbados.
One of the cleverly penned double entendre songs of the evening was Ahmeka’s AM Down And FM Up, which was a hit with the audience. In this song he spoke about modern day DJs who, he said, had lowered the AM band, but had elevated the FM band in some cases for their own satisfaction but to the detriment of some of the calypsonians.
Contone’s Bring De Sugar and Tabitha’s Muscle were well received but paved the way for reigning Party Monarch Blood to send the crowd into a frenzy with his popular social commentary number entitled The Tongue. In this selection he cautioned the Prime Minister to be careful with the use of his tongue.
“Freundel used he tongue to say openly that Adrian should win de crown but did not use he tongue to tell he, he will need two songs,” he sang.
This line had the whole place “mash up” as everyone jumped and screamed for more.  Blood later returned to the stage with his Insane, Stand Up and De Experience, which should guarantee places at both Bushy Park and Kensington Oval.
Even though Mr Dale’s Wow was not one of his stronger songs in recent times, his Programme is a very strong contender for both Party Monarch and Road March.
So too is Mikey’s Pavement.
There were several other good contributions in the second half – from Blank, with De Recipe; Brett Linton, with I Ready; Tejay & Leah, with Double Dynamite; and first-timers Paula Dion and Missy, with Last Man Standing and Pressure, respectively.