Just two days after a spectacular performance at the Groovy Soca Monarch Competition, Q-Pid continues to heat up Lucian Carnival with her latest video "Relieve Me Pressure."

I don't know about her pressure but mine is up and going higher, having not even recovered from the show she put on last Saturday. Q-Pid continues to improve on her game and one cannot comment about any "potential" she may have. Her power has been released. The video could do with some more ladies thought and maybe that would help us guys relieve something too.

Q-Pid's performance a the upcoming Power Soca on Saturday 18 July will definitely be one to look out forward to. I wonder if the competing artistes will be able to handle all that presha!

Even without 2008 King Herb Black, a late start, no shelter from the pelting rain, and some performances that were just ‘passab’, Groovy Soca finals managed to hold its own Saturday night.

Our female artists failed to break the Groovy Soca song barrier once again but QPid came first. She locked in second place with a stellar performance (from sexy career woman to bachnalian) that had the crowd with her from the word go.

But the July 4 production did not quite hold the audience throughout. It was not all groovy, with the mixed bag of artistes making for continuous highs and lows.

Beginning late, after promises, promises, promises, of an 8p.m.-sharp on-time start, the Finals got into the groove with some decent guest artistes.

I vex....I vex for true.......and worse I tired.  Once again the Groovy Soca Monarch Finals missed its mark for me.  From the comments of the few people who formed part of my informal poll, I was not the only one who felt cheated by the organizers of the show.  First thing it started late.  I rushed down at 9:30 p.m. fully expecting to have missed most of the show.  To my consternation, I had only managed to miss Esteban and Lady Empress.  Damn... why couldn't I have missed Dean Roberts, Vicke, Floopsy, Phyness, Soca Princess, Nintus, Marianne, Lady Ce Ce, and Toya as well?

Now do you feel my pain?  It is almost as if the organizers are trying their best to punish those of us who insist on going to every carnival show.  Did I not have enough of the mediocrity and lackluster performances in the tents?  There it is funny and I can joke with my friends about it.  At a final it is just too much.  It wears me down and makes me want to scratch out my eyes to get away from the pain of listening of what is being presented.  Added to that, the music was noisy and at times frankly irritating.

The list of the 19 finalists who will compete against 2008 Power Soca Monarch, Ricky T at the Power Soca Monarch Final on Saturday, July 11, 2009 from 8:00pm at the Mindoo Phillip Park has been confirmed.

(In Random Order)

WINTER

NINTUS

FROST

Like me you too must have been hearing the talk of Alpha making a so-called ‘comeback’ this year. That’s what one of my close carnival liming buddies said to me recently. A comeback, I sharply retorted, why I didn’t know he was gone in the first place and come back from where? I asked.

Apparently my buddy, normally at the top of his intellectual game, had bought into the mistaken notion that Alpha had seen his best days in the calypso arena. That he was ‘over the hill’, living on pass glory and was done for. That was until he heard Alpha’s 2009 groovy track ‘Cyah Wait.’

Although not a musical maestro by any stretch of imagination, my buddy thought Cyah Wait was a masterpiece that showcased an excellent blend of melody and arrangement coupled with a perfect blend of music and lyrics. Thinking he was reading from the judge’s score sheet, I could only agree with him.