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Trini Jungle Juice UK was ready for the warm up. The instructors for the first Notting Hill Carnival concert class were Bajan Soca Queen Alison Hinds and Trinidad's Fireman Bunji Garlin and the Asylum Band. We were excited to get some live soca into London. PoisonUK was holding the event in the famous Stratford Rex, which is located outside the city circle and we believe many people didn't want to make the journey because of this. Some folks even complained that World Cup 2006 had depleted their budgets, so they weren't planning on going out until PoisonUK 70° Alternative Concept 4 scheduled for the following week.

We arrived in fine fashion just as Alison got on stage. Her voice was sweet as usual but the crowd didn't look like they were ready for the session. There was a sizeable crowd, but didn't full out the huge venue. At first, the audience was sluggish and didn't want to take the commands being voiced by Alison, but in fine fashion Alison whipped them in to shape and had them doing some pelvic movements after some time. After a light warm up she took them into full pace, but they were not reacting with full conviction.

Now one advantage of having ah smallish crowd was dat it was easier to get around and get drinks at the bar. There was a doubles man in the back hitting the crowd off with sweet barra and channa. One TJJ rep handled bout 4 on the spot and after the show finish, take six to leave, yes! Benji, we ent callin no names! ;-) The crowd had some lookers and the males were trying to look smooth as usual in dey brands.

Between band changes the DJ tried to keep the crowd satisfied but wow, these feters looked to be falling asleep. So Bunji was d next instructor. He came blazing de fire and proved to be an alarm clock that awoke the attendees. He went through the exercises one by one, and also bought up ah guest artist (whose name we cannot remember at this time). Now the guest artist constantly had to be using the snooze alarm as some of the partygoers would dose off at times. The acoustics of the Stratford hall also seemed to leave a lot to be desired... the music jus didn't sound as melodious and sweet as Caribbean artists are know for.

We really not sure what happened on the night, but the true Carnival spirit jus wasn't fully present. People went home on da night feeling like they didn't get ah true warm up... but heh, let's see if Machel and Xtatik get things properly heated to 70° in less than ah week - same place, same bat time!