Triplets call it a day

AFTER four years of making music together, the Triplets have called it a day.

The boy band comprising Joshua Regrello (pannist), Darren Ramsook (bass guitarist) and Lyndel Bertie (electric guitarist), held a farewell concert at C3 Centre on August 16, to say goodbye to their fans. The band members pulled out all stops, fusing different genres of music and instruments, incorporating the tassa and dhantal in some numbers, resulting in cries of “encore, encore” from the audience.

They were joined by members who have performed with the band over the years, including keyboardist and drummer Avinash Mohip Mohip and young guitarists, Christon Floyd. Members of the audience, joined by some of the musicians, also formed a conga line and danced in circles in front of the stage.

The band was formed while the trio were students at Naparima College to perform at an award ceremony at President’s House for one of their colleagues, who had received the President’s Medal based on his CAPE results in 2015. Immediately after the President’s House performance, the group was hired by one of their teachers to perform at his wedding and the rest, as they say, was history. They performed at music festivals, as the opening act for a David Rudder concert, and at individual gigs both in TT and abroad. The original team included a fourth member, drummer Xavier Joseph, who left to study medicine abroad. Daniel Ferguson of Presentation College replaced Joseph as a drummer, but he too left to study engineering abroad.

Playing with the band, Ramsook said, has been the best decision of his young life, but career moves and educational pursuits played a major role in the members’ decision to part ways. The young men, all scholarship winners, include a budding doctor, lawyer, and engineer who all share a passion for music.

Ramsook, who created a free online learning platform, eLearn Caribbean for CSEC and CAPE students who need help with maths, has done his first degree in electrical and computer engineering and started his masters degree in data science. At the moment he is using artificial intelligence algorithms to boost security for the educational website.

“I actually made a system, wrote a research paper and I am going to France in December to present this research paper,” Ramsook said.

Regrello has taken time off from his legal studies to focus on leading CAL Skiffle steel ensemble. Asked if this is truly the end or if they may evolve at a later date in a different incarnation, they did not rule out the possibility.

“We could never tell,” the Regrello said. “If we have to start back, we might start back differently, we might start back bigger. But this is the final performance of Triplets as you know it.” However, they emphasised, it certainly is not the end of their friendship.

“Each of us individually, we good, we okay – but the feeling we experience when we play together, when we feed off each other, is the best feeling. That wave of energy we get when we perform at the same time, it is phenomenal, and I would not trade it for the world,” Ramsook said. “It is hard to determine the future, but in a couple of years when we finish our studies, we will come back and see what’s happening.”

San Fernando mayor Junia Regrello, father of the Triplets’ pannist, recalled that his home was their music room.

“I did not have access to my house or my fridge. I had to run and hide in the bedroom because of all the noise. But it is interesting to see them evolve and grow from young brothers to teenagers to mature guys, not checking their career path and prioritising what needs to be prioritised.

“Nothing is permanent. We are happy for the experience.

“They are all like my sons. I have watched them grow from when they had one song, to two and three and when they were making their videos to promote themselves.”

Regrello said the style and way they presented themselves “speaks volumes for our culture, our music, our diversity and all those positives we take for granted in this country.

“Tonight we saw people of all different races, colour, class coming together because of these committed young men, who came from the school system, from one of the best schools in the country, where the focus was not only on education by on excellence in every sphere of activity. I am proud of what they have achieved.”