Blondie Bird and Friends wins 7th Band of the Year title

Blondie Bird and Friends won their seventh Winston “Samo” Samuel Band of Year title on Mardi Gras, Tuesday July 9, 2024, with their portrayal “Motherland”.

But while band leaders Garth Niles and Elroy “Blondie Bird” Boyd are elated about the win, Niles said unless there is some sort of intervention where costume/mas making is introduced into schools, the possibility exists that traditional mas will die.

Ozzie Constance, the designer of “Motherland” and the other six Band of the Year wins for Blondie Bird, also sees issues, one being a shortage of costume designers, made worse with the passing of Julian ‘Peling’ Pollard.

Niles said also that he is urging corporate St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to contribute to the traditional bands.

“To be honest, winning is a great feeling, but we had a lot going on. People have stopped helping you out. Registration started off good then slowed down, then picked up back at the end when foreigners came in.” Niles said that they expected to win this year as their focus is on competition and you can “feel it” when you are making winning costumes.

“I’m involved in this for 30 years and when you are building, you have a feeling, so we kind of know early we would win.” Niles said the prize money could be better but they welcome the increase that the Carnival Development Corporation (CDC) gave this year. He said the cost of building costumes is rising every year; last year a pan of contact cement was EC$130 but this year the same size is EC$260.

“Everything went up.” This year, the band had 295 adults masqueraders and 120 children; a far cry from previous years.

Niles is firm in the view that it is important to preserve the traditional bands, and while next year they will be hoping to do one or two sections that will feature modern mas, as an attraction to younger masqueraders, they believe it is important to get a boost for the traditional aspect of costume building.

“People have to know the traditional aspect, so I am appealing to the sponsors. If it continues like this, it will end up with two mas bands in St Vincent,” Niles predicts.

Meanwhile, commenting on the win, Constance said his ideas come from “God”. He said Niles and Boyd go through his designs with a “fine teeth comb” and that
is part of the winning process.

“When I pick up a drawing book and it’s empty, I get frighten,” Constance joked on Thursday, while Niles revealed that the artist is so prolific that one year he designed costumes for eight different mas camps.

Blondie Bird and Friends won their titles using Constance’s designs in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2023 and 2024.

Coming in second in the Band of the Year competition was High Voltage Mas Band, with “Westward Ho! Destination West Indies”. Third went to Nelson Bloc with “De Band Coming”, in fourth position was Mirage Production with “Painted Sky”.