BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – IT is difficult to strike a comparison between the amount of revellers who participated in this morning’s (Dec. 26) J’Ouvert when compared with last year, simply because there were countless individuals who “powered up”, had their “bottoms in d road” and who said “yes” to seven hours of none-stop rum, food and ‘wuk-up’ through the streets of Basseterre.
In theory, the jam session, the first for the Sugar Mas 43 festivities, was to have begun at 4:00 a.m. and, notwithstanding the traditional late start, there was revelry in the various camps even before hitting the J’Ouvert path.
One by one the Hi-Fis rolled onto the J’Ouvert route gaining revel momentum as their made their way through the streets.
Real Right Entertainment, Xtreme and Tombstone International quickly gained the jammers attention by pumping some of this year’s popular Soca tunes, with their crowds growing by leaps and bounds with each rotation around the route.
The bands got off to a later start with the Kollision Band, and the Small Axe Band first coming out of the blocks.
Unfortunately, the Kollision Band experienced some difficulty when the tyres on their trailer were punctured, which led to them cutting their jam short. But just to give their fans a taste of their sound, they drove along Fort Street with the flat tyres before heading back to their base.
With foam fingers hoisted in the air in perfect synchronisation and shouts of “yes”, the arrival of the Grand Masters Band was signalled.
There were many bottoms in Small Axe’s road, so much so that is was said to have pulled the largest crowd.
But after the “power up” and the “power wuk-up” band, Nu Vybes, hit the road, it pulled a crowd larger than those of the other bands.
The J’Ouvert troupes which filled the streets were the Xtreme Generation, Love Parade, Mas Jumbies, Small Axe Shiggidy Shack J’Ouvert Buccaneers, Red Devils, GM Adixx, NG World, Maintain Dis and the J’Ouvert Animolz.
Some people enjoy the moments of J’Ouvert because it is the biggest opportunity for them to ‘leh go dey waist’, kiss inhibitions goodbye and enjoy unbridled revelry; while a number of them see it as the best place to intake endless quantities of alcohol, and for others it is a means of displaying their creative side, evident by their unique and, in some cases, absurd attire and accessories.
At about 10:00 a.m., the Xtreme Hi-Fi system and revellers took a detour onto Bank Street for the traditional “wet down” session. But it was stopped within an hour after one of the revellers’ head got busted from a missiles thrown into the crowd.
SKNVibes understands that the incident occurred around the time that the J’Ouvert session was scheduled to end, 11:00 a.m., and at that point all revelry had ceased.
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