Machel comes to Blue Diamonds’ rescue

So­ca star Machel Mon­tano has come to the res­cue of an un­spon­sored steel­band which had been strug­gling to pre­pare for the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion.

Af­ter read­ing the Sun­day Guardian’s ar­ti­cle Di­a­monds in the rough high­light­ing the plight of George Street-based Blue Di­a­monds Steel Or­ches­tra, Mon­tano de­cid­ed to help.

Yes­ter­day Machel’s moth­er, Eliz­a­beth “La­dy” Mon­tano, met with the band’s cap­tain Wayne St Clair Babb and sec­re­tary Ju­dith Cham­bers to de­ter­mine ex­act­ly how the Machel Mon­tano Foun­da­tion for Great­ness will as­sist.

Blue Di­a­monds will be im­me­di­ate­ly gift­ed with four new steel pans, in­clud­ing two tenor and two sec­onds, a new trap set, jer­seys, and a ban­ner. Oth­er as­pects of spon­sor­ship will al­so be worked out.

Blue Di­a­monds will face the judges in their pa­n­yard on Feb­ru­ary 10 in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the Panora­ma Small Band com­pe­ti­tion.

The meet­ing be­tween Mon­tano, St Clair Babb and Cham­bers took place at the of­fice of Xtatik Lim­it­ed lo­cat­ed at 39 Gor­don Street in Port-of-Spain.

While Machel is com­mit­ted to help­ing the band, it was at the meet­ing Mon­tano re­alised the band ac­tu­al­ly had some his­to­ry with her son. Machel used the band’s pan stands as part of his 2017 mu­sic video for the song Buss Head with Ian “Bun­ji Gar­lin” Al­varez. A por­tion of the mu­sic video was filmed on Cock­er­ton Street which is near the Blue Di­a­mond pa­n­yard.

Then they re­alised the con­nec­tion was even deep­er.

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By Joel Julien

Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.