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Thou­sands poured in­to the cap­i­tal on Wednes­day for the fi­nal leg of the pre­lim­i­nary “pan crawl,” as steel­pan rhythms rolled through Port-of-Spain, once again af­firm­ing its place as the na­tion’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

The North­ern Re­gion Na­tion­al Large Con­ven­tion­al Band Pre­lim­i­nar­ies kicked off at the Massy Trinidad All Stars Steel Or­ches­tra com­pound on Duke Street. Though sched­uled to be­gin at 7 pm, late ar­rivals by judges, Pan Trin­ba­go ex­ec­u­tives and oth­er stake­hold­ers de­layed pro­ceed­ings.

At 7:45 pm, the first note was struck, and the de­lay did lit­tle to dull the at­mos­phere. Steel­pan play­ers were high-spir­it­ed, with every move and ex­pres­sion keep­ing the au­di­ence en­gaged well in­to the night.