Everton Chambers won first prize in the song category in the St. Ann parish finals of Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's 'Talent Search' competition last Saturday at St. Mark's Anglican Church, Brown's Town. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer IN A show featuring very little talent and compounded by little organisation, St. Ann on Saturday selected their parish finalists for the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission's 'Talent Search' competition. The parish finals took place at the St. Mark's Anglican Church Hall in Brown's Town, St. Ann.
Most of the performers showed no inkling of having an understanding of what performing entails. Often, they seemed to mistake this to mean that once they hit the stage they should simply run from one end to the next, ignoring the audience completely. This trait was true for both the song and deejay categories.
Additionally, too many of the singers were not sufficiently familiar with the concept of hitting a note. The mediocre performances were not assisted by the poor sound quality. Those behind the controls apparently attempted to substitute volume for clarity.
Although the talent search competition features entries in dance, deejay and song, the St. Ann finals featured entries in only deejay and song. Of the deejay entries, three of them were actually rap.
MAJOR HICCUP
Originally scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m., the talent search finals did not begin until close to 9:30 p.m. Even then, another major hiccup, (other than a trapped bat which flew at dazzling speed around the room trying to escape) would be on its way.
Despite the late start, the introduction of the backing band, Kasha, took much longer than necessary. Additionally, as the band began to play the first notes of their opening song, a circuit breaker overloaded, and the venue was temporarily thrown into darkness. The show was therefore delayed for another, very noisy, 15 minutes.
To the show's credit, once the competition began, the arrivals of the contestants on the stage flowed smoothly, Unfortunately, most of the performances contained little of interest, either in content or performance.
The competition featured 21 finalists, 12 of these were in the deejay category, including the three contestants who rapped. Additionally, of the rappers, one of the performers, Craig McDonald, appeared twice, first with the duo, Mobster Pages, and later, solo.
DECISIONS
Popular deejay Tanya Stephens, dancer and choreographer, Howard Daley, and music teacher, Devon Liscon, were in charge of the night's adjudication. They evidently had quite a task in selecting the night's winners, taking close to an 90 minutes to make their decisions.
Everton Chambers, who sang Shine Your Light managed to swim to the top of the pool of mediocrity to earn first place among the singers, earning $10,000. Chambers was also deemed the best performer of the competition.
Chester Dalrymple earned second place among the singers. Dalrymple, who sang Building a City, also earned a trophy after being dubbed the most creative performer. Donald Sutton's performance of Stranger earned him third place among the singers. Both second and third place winners received 'boom boxes' as their prizes.
The judges, not surprisingly, given the performances, were unable to find a performer to award the first place prize for the deejay category. Richard McIntosh earned second place with Police and Taximan. Third place was won by Zambia Edwards, who had performed Judgement Come.
The final trophy of the evening was given to Curtis Clayton. Dressed in what appeared to be a suit of mock pleather, he managed to be dubbed the best dressed performer of the night.
The 'Talent Search' competition will culminate at the Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Hope Road, Kingston on July 30.
