The daytime today was very uneventful...up late, breakfast, car trip to a friend/relative of Susan's to drop off money for the fundraiser/party with all the competition winners (Brian Lara Fete) on Sunday night. We spent a lovely time sitting in the yard under the palm trees with such a nice breeze.
Home for lunch and after a few emails--a nap. Saurel and Susan's grown sons Marcus and Marcel are arriving tonight for their first Carnival. After they arrive, we are off to the festivities with Susan's cousin Darlene in the know and leading the way.

We arrived at Panorama around 10:30 pm. The Panorama is the big Steel Drum competition during Trinidad Carnival. Another name for the Steel Drum is Pan--hence the Panorama. A side note: steel pan's were invented in Trinidad. A very early version was just sticks and different metal pipes or objects. The more modern type drums began to appear in the 1930's and 40's. Now the highly tuned and sophisticated drums can play anything from classical to modern to calypso...anything an orchestra can play! You can see from the photos the diversity of the pans-from bass to soprano.
Tickets to the Panorama are $50. Without tickets, we decided to walk around outside the stadium where each of the upcoming bands were practicing before they performed. We were able to get up close to the bands and performers.

All memorized tunes- playing without sheet music!

Playing the lower notes on bigger drum. 

Some of the players will hit the drum behind them without looking

You can see here the surface of the Pan  has been pounded out to make multiple notes.

There are multiple notes for each drum.

The lower bass pans have fewer notes and the soprano pans have more notes per pan

So fun to watch them practice. Very unemotional while practicing.

When they get in front of the judges they smile, jump, and bounce around while playing.

The Pans are mounted on carts.  

When they are ready to preform, they wheel their cart into place in front of the judges.

Bigger drum, lower notes

Fun to watch this group of performers-some very young!

Saurel spoke to a young man who looked to be about 15 years old.  He'd been playing Pan for 13 years, starting when he was 9!

Each band has dancers and flag twirlers that preform with them. 

This gal was practicing near her band.

This next picture captured how we all felt at 1:30 am - 

We called it a night and walked back to our car.

. 

Marcus just sat down on the pavement where we were standing and listening to our last band.

Needless to say he did not make it to the next party call Insomnia...

Home to bed for us "older" folk...we had no intention of even attempting to go to Insomnia!

The name speaks for itself...