15 finalists move on to Kaisorama

There will be no changes to the struc­ture of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch fi­nals dur­ing Kaiso­ra­ma on Thurs­day at Queen’s Park, Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The same cri­te­ria as last year, one song per per­former, will ap­ply for the 15 fi­nal­ists who were se­lect­ed from among 40 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who per­formed at the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta semi­fi­nals on Sat­ur­day af­ter their per­for­mance at Skin­ner Park.

Reign­ing Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis will de­fend his ti­tle at the show dubbed the Night of Cham­pi­ons and con­tes­tants will vie for the first prize of $700,000.

Each of the 15 ca­lyp­so­ni­ans moved for­ward based on a point sys­tem, which to­talled 100 points. The break­down in­cludes 30 points for melody, 30 points for lyrics, ren­di­tion 20, pre­sen­ta­tion 10, and orig­i­nal­i­ty 10. 

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, who was the sub­ject of sev­er­al of the ca­lyp­soes, al­so made a cameo ap­pear­ance at Skin­ner Park. Sur­round­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers, the Com­mis­sion­er was greet­ed with hugs by many of the pa­trons be­fore he re­turned to the VIP area.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so made a brief ap­pear­ance and was em­braced by sup­port­ers.

At the end of the com­pe­ti­tion vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters earned a spot in the com­pe­ti­tion along­side vet­er­an An­tho­ny “All Rounder” Hen­drick­son, new­com­er Ronal­do Lon­don, the reign­ing Young King, Er­phaan Alves and Kurt Allen.

How­ev­er, Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­ouna, the on­ly per­former which prompt­ed the crowd to wave toi­let pa­per, did not make it to the fi­nals.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) vice pres­i­dent Steve “Ras Kom­man­da” Pas­call said com­pe­ti­tions were a set back to the art­form.

“I wish com­pe­ti­tions could be done with; is broth­er hat­ing broth­er. The on­ly thing good com­ing out of it is that it putting mon­ey in a man pock­et. This is not what this thing is about. So­ci­ety should be built out of love. This thing is hurt­ing the art­form.”

Bri­an Lon­don who sang in the sec­ond po­si­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion with Who to Call was award­ed the Peo­ple’s Choice award. Lon­don re­ceived 877 votes and was pre­sent­ed a cheque of $10,000.

At the clos­ing hours of the show, Neil “Iw­er” George was among the en­ter­tain­ers called on stage.

Po­lice of­fi­cers formed a bar­ri­cade to pre­vent mem­bers of the au­di­ence from dam­ag­ing them­selves and pulling down the bar­ri­cade dur­ing the en­ter­tain­ment seg­ment. Oth­er acts in­clude The A Team band, Ex­plain­er, John­ny King, Pos­er and Scrunter.