Sion Hill Steel Orchestra, Blondie Bird and Friends shine

On a night when one component was headed towards doing the double, another appeared to be setting the stage for what may be to come.{{more}}

The National Lotteries Authority Sion Hill Euphonium Steel Orchestra’s senior team played their way into the hearts and heads of the judges to gain their nod for the second straight year as Panorama Champions.

In a show dubbed Steel and Glitter and featuring the Sections of the Bands competition, the sixty-member Sion Hill team played a rendition of Blacksand’s ‘Follow Me’ to the arrangement of Seion Gomez, to claim only their second senior title since their formation in 1981.

The senior team joins the juniors, who also had back to back victories in the Junior Panorama competition which took place on June 29.

Head of the Sion Hill based organisation, Warren ‘Boomie’ Knights, said that the pan sides intend to go for the hat trick next year, which, if completed, will coincide with their 30th anniversary.

Knights said that the organization has been progressing and is crediting this to, among other things, their summer programme which is due to continue at the end of this month.

Coming in at second place was the Potential Steel Orchestra, which lustily played a rendition of Poorsah’s ‘Ship Sail’, which was not enough to sail past Sion Hill, but was enough to keep them afloat and ahead of the third placed Rhythmix Steel Orchestra.

Rhythmix did a cover of Al Wilson’s ‘Pan in me Soca’.

The two other pan sides in the competition were the Elite Steel Orchestra and the South East Steel Orchestra.

On the glitter side of things, Guinness/Y De Lima/ HITZ FM Blondie Bird and Friends secured their first title on the way to the Band of the Year crown, with their section called ‘Thriller’.

This section was from their presentation of ‘King of Pop – Tribute to Michael Jackson’, which out scored the section Joan of Arc presented by KFC/ Heineken Dragons, in association with CK Greaves, Cash Money Investments and the News Newspaper, as part of their 2010 band Warriors Myths and Legends.

In third place was ‘When yo play with fire yo get burn’, presented by First Caribbean/ WE FM/ KBB Shipping Singer Lynx Mas Band from their presentation ‘Ole People Say’.

The win in the Sections and Queen and eventual Band of the Year could possibly be the beginning of a new era, which could see the beginning of a Blondie Bird streak, where the veteran mas band may be the next in line to rule the mas arena for the coming years.