Kernal: Palance win shows drop in standards
KIMBERLY MACKHAN
Published: 20 Feb 2010
The wide margin of success between Palance and its nearest competitor in the 2010 Road March Competition reflected a weak contest and drop in standards among the competition’s participants, according to Palance song-writer, Kernal Roberts. “Anytime you have a runaway Road March (winner), like Palance, that means that the competition was not stiff and that means that the standards of the industry kind of dropped this year,” Roberts told the Trinidad Guardian in a telephone interview on Ash Wednesday. “It was only Palance (being played) on the road and, at one point in time, Palance was just on repeat (play). That song was so fulfilling to the masqueraders that they did not want to hear anything else.” Palance, which was performed by radio personalities Jason Williams (JW) and Blaze (Ancil Isaac), defeated last year’s defending Road March champion, Faye-Ann Lyons-Alvarez, and her song, True Lies, to become this year’s Road March winner. It was the first time that a Road March song was played more than 400 times at the various judging points for Carnival. Palance was played 417 times, compared to Lyons-Alvarez’s True Lies, which was played 40 times.
Machel Montano’s No Behaviour, played 11 times, secured third position. “I did anticipate the serious cut-ass. I know what masqueraders want from my experience. “True Lies is a good song but the reason that song did not close the margin (or) gap (was) because that song was too personalised,” Roberts said. “People do not like to deal with one person’s personal issues; you need to factor it so that everybody could be included in the song. She (Lyons-Alvarez) is singing about her own personal issues. “It is a more melodious song than Palance but Palance had the melody to carry it (to Road March.”) Roberts said that he did not anticipate that the song would capture the winning titles of both this year’s Soca Monarch and Roach March. “Well, I did not anticipate the win coming down to the stretch in the initial stage. I knew it would have been a good song. I worked hard on it. It was a happy theme. It had all the elements and the ingredients to be a successful song in the initial stages. “As the season progressed, I realised that slowly but surely it was the overwhelming song of the Carnival and the most popular song, and most of the time that leads to a victory in the Road March.”
Roberts conceded that he was concerned that the song’s overwhelming early success would wane by Carnival Monday and Tuesday. “What I told Blaze and Jason (was that) over the years, I know from experience, (you) do not mind if a song comes out early. If it is a big song, once you perform that song in the fetes and at events, it is going to transfer the energy back into the song, even if it was dying on the radio.” Roberts added: “When people see (Palance performed) live, it breathes news life into the song and once you are doing a good performance, like JW and Blaze did, the underdogs, the life in the song was rejuvenated. Roberts said Palance, which was his third Road March hit, became more popular after more time passed. “It ended up just getting bigger and bigger.
The longer it was out, the more popular it got and the more people loved the song and the dance. The dance was initiated and everything skyrocketed because people like to do fun things on the road. “The whole thing was fun. Blaze was harassing me for a song like a year now, and I was like, you need to be serious Blaze, you need to talk to Jase and you guys need to be swift. I spoke to them and they assured me that they would be serious.”
