14992: Burnham: kanaval (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

>From Thor Burnham in Port-au-Prince:

I know how much i've enjoyed and appreciated other peoples efforts to
provide the list with information on kanaval. So i thought i'd try and give
a detailed account of yesterday evening and early this morning.

We headed down to Champ Mars at about 6 p.m. and decided to base ourselves
at the Comcel stand just down from Telemax, right before the corner to the
Plaza Hotel. In fact we could see the plaza stand clearly.
That's to give those of you familiar with the set up an idea of our
location.

Of course, in typical kanaval style, first to the railing on the stand meant
the best seat. In fact, the Comcel stand was poorly constructed and was
consisted of comcel employees and a several other groups who used the stand
to meet and party together. Lots of gwo bundas at comcell.

>From six onward we watched a regular fare of bann a pyes and some decent
looking dance groups trying to make their way through the mass of humanity
on the street. Myself and another fellow decided to go down and join a Rara
band for a little while. Lots of good feeling on the street as far as i
could tell. When we got back my friend discovered his wallet had been
lifted. He was not happy, needless to say.

At about eight the floats started. And forgive me if i don't have perfect
recall, for a number of reasons.

The first major float was ti-telefon. They kept playing the "kale" song by
Kriz--whose lyrics i won't bother to try and put here since this goes
against list policy. And the guy on the mike was obviously trying to send a
message by inserting "sink ans" at the end of kale dada jann ou vle. But it
got people dancing.

a small float came afterwards with Koudjay's "election oui, kou d'etat no"
blaring. i was waiting for a big response. not much of anything, and a
foreshadowing of things to come.

Rev went through and was not bad, seemed a lukewarm to positive response.

Ti-Vice came through and absolutely rocked the place. My word can those guys
put on a show!! Great Kanaval song and great performance. And, of course,
the song is a polemique against Djakout Mizik, which adds some intrigue to
the festivities. Ti vice stopped near the National Police stand, which was
close to us, and said something to the effect that someone had tried to
imitate his helicopter song from the year before, but that there would be
only one song like that. They then proceeded to take champ mars in a
whirlwind of music.

following t-vice several "Lavalas" bands came through. talk about a tough
crowd. nothing had to be said, of course. The attitude of the crowd on the
street and in the stands was obvious. Bobeche (sp) got a ho-hum response and
then came koudjay. As one of my friends said, "muzik la dous, me moun pa vle
we'l". I have to tell ya, i was very surprised. After watching the way
T-Vice got the crowd going, the reaction to Koudjay was a visible snub. It
was as if they were saying "ok, that's nice, now hurry up for someone else
becuase we don't want to see or hear your sorry ass."

I should note that in between each char were floats on various themes. Kind
of a nice touch, I guess. But i didn't manage to get anyone's reaction to
them. Me, i thought they were lame.

A few other floats came by. Then Konpa Kreyol. The were just a notch below
T-Vice, and they got the place rocking as well. Great song. they spent a
bunch of time near us because their sponsor was Perserverance Borlette, just
across and down from us.

Zinglin had a great sound system, and were really trying, but couldn't get
the connection with the crowd that T-Vice, Konpa Kreyol or Brothers Posse or
even Djakout Mizik made.

Well, i'm almost out of time. Brothers' Posse were great and we left at
about 2:30 am when Djakout went by our stand. People told me there were
still a whole bunch of chars that hadn't left yet. We were hoping to see
Kriz.

Lots of fun. Saw lots of blan walking the streets. relaxed atmosphere.
I'm told tuesday will be fight night.
should be interesting.

best, thor burnham

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