We all know it, been saying so for years. Something about the show on the Sunday before j'ouvert just seems out of sync. The joint event featuring the King and Queen of the Bands and the Caribbean Soca Monarch completion, gives me the notion that it's just slotted in because it can't fit anywhere else.

I've looked at the routine for the last four years and it's become pretty predictable ... a sprinkle of a crowd gathers to watch the first segment of the show (can barely 200 be called a crowd @ Mindoo Philip Park?) and then just as the Soca show is about to begin, the "j'ouvert army" converges en mass.

Now please don't understand me too fast. I love the big costumes; in fact, they're the first memories I have since I was about five years old when the word carnival entered my vocabulary. It's just not "Carnival" without those costumes. The artistry, costume imagery and theatre put on by the few who still work so hard to bring it to life must certainly be encouraged and cultivated in environment where it will grow.

The event as it is currently put together, just seems to target two diverse interests. Those of us who follow both shows have to abruptly change mood and focus as the curtain comes down on part I and goes up for part II. Perhaps ... and I go out on a long tremble limb here ... a marriage of panorama and the costumes is more logical. I've been trying to figure out how to best fill in the long break between the changeover of steel orchestras over the past two years, besides the usual DJ music and give-a-ways.

The OECS & Barbados Soca Monarch has morphed into Caribbean Soca Monarch; I choose my words carefully here because I would have expected the event to "grow" to include the very best artistes from around the region. Participation of the cream of the crop from around the OECS seems to be on lock, I'm just not sure what's the reason that we're not getting the very best from beyond, as evidenced by another predictable outcome this year. Hmm ... maybe that's why there's also a World Soca Monarch Competition also.

Here are the night's results:

Queen of the Bands

1st Place (433 points) - Mas Action "Our Heritage ... The Craft" portrayed by Zizi Pitcairn

2nd Place (386 points) - Rituals "La Coquette de Paris" portrayed by Sharon Tanner

3rd Place (375 points) - St. Lucian Spirit "Queen of Sheba" portrayed by Rusline DuBoulay

King of the Bands

1st Place - Rituals "Vaval: Spirit of the Mas" portrayed by Martin Dorville

2nd Place (366 points) - Mas Action "Catch of the Day” portrayed by Ethelbert Willie

3rd Place (256 points) - Royalites Extreme "Zulu Warrior" portrayed by Barry George

Caribbean Soca Monarch

Caribbean Soca Monarch 2009 (397 points) - Rick T (Saint Lucia) "Like a Jumbie"

1st Runner Up (386.6 points) - Skinny Fabulous (St. Vincent)”The Beast Let Go"

2nd Runner up (377.5 points) - Iilah Man (Saint Lucia) "I Want My Money Back"