What a Christmas Concert!

Not So Good Lessons from Christmas Concert

By William Doyle-Marshall

The Ultimate Christmas Concert featuring three of Trinidad and Tobago’s top musical bards produced by Drupatie’s Restaurant at the Scarborough Convention Center on Sunday can easily be summed up as a good social occasion.  Approximately 2,000 Trinis and their Canadian friends turned out for the event. It was much better than sitting at home looking at some mind-numbing recycled television production.

After the social contribution everything went downhill. Consider this: You are in a convention hall and all the seats are at the same level. No risers. The stage where performers showed off their wares is barely above the heads of patrons. Visibility is bound to be a problem. That should be pretty easy to observe.

  The promoter need to do a course on what decent promotion should look like. For starters, it is highly recommended that they contact Impresario Earl Harris, my American colleague who was responsible for promoting the Mighty Sparrow’s career back in the sixties and through the seventies. Calypso and Soca should be elevated, not pushed down into the basement environment where it once flourished. Whatever happened to those days at the Roy Thomson Hall? They can come back again.

The Scarborough Convention Center is good for a large crowd. But where is the artistry? Surely capitalism went very mad. Imagine patrons paid 35 dollars to enter and just be there. Then others paid 45 dollars to be in the VIP section. Sounds really good. But what did they get that was different from those who paid $65? Sorry friends. Communication or miss-communication was the order of the night. Some patrons heard that $65 admission entitled them to hor d’oeuvres. But others did not know that. There were rumours that you would get two drinks. But not everybody knew that.

Let’s look at why we were there: The attraction was to experience Kenny J and Crazy and the Baron. Why did the promoters present them very late in the evening after people started getting restless and noisy? Some left the premises without seeing their stars perform. This says a lot about the promoters’ ability to program a show. Or should we conclude they didn’t care as long as they got your money? There was no reason for a late start. Patrons arrived at the venue early for a five o'clock show as was promised.

  Disrespect is one word to be associated with the shoddy presentation.  Since Baron emerged enthusiastically with “Severe Licking (He Lick She) on the music scene back more than forty years ago, he deserves stellar recognition. Kenny J entered the musical scene afterwards. He too has been an immense crowd pleaser. And of course the loveable lunatic as we call Crazy, known for his antics on stage, with his memorable Dustbin Cover, the Electrician and much more, like Paul Yuh Mudder Come, Nannie Wine plus. They should not be expected to perform to tracks. Just listen to the calibre of their music as it bounced through the lousy speaker boxes in the Scarborough Convention Center and you wonder, why wasn’t there a real, live band accompanying them – perhaps with a conductor as well? But no. Madness blended with Capitalism caused the promoters to delve into a high wire balancing act of frugality.

                                             Joel and Joane Davis (top photo); section of 

                                             Sunday's audience and Crazy -- at the 

                                             Scarborough Convention Center 

Joanne Davis and her brother Joel (Connector) Davis suffered the brunt of sound system incompetence. Their muffled sound forced people to steups throughout their early sppearance on the show. June Smith, a balladeer of note faced the viscious agony of poor sounditis. After stopping the track two or three times, she resorted to getting on the floor close to the audience. That seemed to provide the technicians an opportunity to re-tweak their toys that they were obviously just learning to use.  Los Amigos, Los Bajaros and Moka, were the other local input to the show and they too struggled to be heard over the faulty sound system. Why were those three parang bands squished into one room -- surely not appropriate for dressing and definitely uncomfortable to facilitte that many individuals. Seems like Curtis Eustace, the man of the moment believed he was dealing with a masquarade band on the Lakeshore where individuals are forced to get into costume behind automobile doors or in the confines of towels held in place by friends. Performers should not be dressingg in washrooms, restrooms or toilets. That practice must be outlawed.

  But I am still wondering whether that concert was a dress rehearsal for Moka headed by Garth Blackman. To stand on stage swinging to and fro before about 2,000 patrons looking pretty and sounding very, very shaky to the point that people started rubbing their eyes, stretching and yawning, is not anywhere near to being impressive. By now Eustace and his team should have done a post mortem and among the items on their list for next time should be hiring a qualified and experienced producer and a budget for sound check time is vital. It would cost a bit more but in the end you would smell like roses – never mind the colour. Delivering to your patrons exactly what you promise is cardinally correct. Anything else has to be seen as false advertising. And consumers are entitled to demand a refund.

   Frankly, I left the Scarborough Convention Center Sunday night feeling as though I was in a flea market and there was some entertainment thrown in for good measure. Not good enough fellahs! Our stars have earned the right to supreme treatment.