Bitter with the Sweet

THE ANNOUNCEMENT was met with boos and several thumbs down.But say what you will, TC, the 2009 Sweet Soca monarch, captured the fancy of the judges and held onto her crown, shoving away stiff competition from seven “fire-in-the-eyes” challengers at Bushy Park yesterday.Hailing from the De Digicel Big Show, TC scored 450 points beating her nearest rival Mikey of the Headliners tent who got 440 and half points.Crowd favourite Mr Dale “dropped it”, ending up in third spot with 433 and a half points.The partygoers could not have wanted it any better.There was sweet music, an excellent atmosphere and a bit of luck that saw threatening rains skirt to the north, allowing the growing numbers present to enjoy the Sweet Soca competition being held at the St Philip venue for the first time.The Sweet Soca competition, organised and administered by the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) in its second year, attracted eight finalists who were selected from submitted compact discs. Mr Dale of Headliners opened with his popular Drop It and immediately had the fans singing along with him: “Oh, we having a ball, the sun could shine, the rain could fall, (and this) is the way we drop it and wuk it.” His was a strong melody with simple yet effective lyrics.Li’l Rick of Celebration Time, another big name, used lots of revelry on stage in What A Feeling but was unable to capture the audience with his legendary histrionics and interaction. He scored 409 and a half points.Kirk Brown, of De Big Show although placing way down at position seven with 361 points, gave an excellent performance with Dat Is All I Want. Brown’s music was well arranged and possessed a catchy melody with lots of percussion.Mikey was one of the crowd’s favourites, and he was the only act who was able to get Bushy Park moving from start to finish as he did My Party.  Other contestants were Khiomal with Wine On You with 431 points, Brett Linton with Can’t Stop Dis Party with 305 points and Blood, also of Headliners, with Boom Bam with 408 and a half points. Contestants were going after 25 points for performance, 15 for melody, 15 for voice riding the rhythm, 20 for lyrics, and five points for presentation and crowd response.