Pan Parade Steel Band - Sweet Strains of Steel on The UK South Coast

Nov 10

Nov 10 Pan Parade Steel Band - Sweet Strains of Steel on The UK South Coast

In the 1980s, Neil Mogridge who was from Faversham, Kent attended The Abbey School where he was part of the schools’ steel band as well as playing in their semi pro steel band, Steel Pulse II. Neil learnt how to play all different sections of the band, as well as playing percussion.

Although music was a huge part of Neil’s life he spent 23 years in the Royal Navy reaching the rank of Chief Petty Officer before retiring in 2010. He became a music teacher in Portsmouth in 2011 and was given the opportunity to bring Steel Pan into the school after an offer of some pans from the local music hub. The pans were a bit of a state do he arranged for them to be spray painted and tuned, whilst he started to write arrangements for a not yet formed steel band.

Neil had the idea of inviting some year 6 pupils to learn the pan so they could perform for their parents at their end of year assembly. The assembly was a resound success playing ‘get lucky’ by daft punk, ‘the way you make me feel’ by Michael Jackson and ‘Jammin’ by Bob Marley. The parents were blown away.

As the pupils were leaving the school to go onto seconds education Neil asked the head teacher if the pupils could come back and carry on with the band if they wanted to, to which most of them agree. Pan Parade Steel Band was born. Practicing every week, the band learnt more and more tunes and were then ready to perform again, but this time it was to be a slightly bigger deal.

The band was to perform at Portsmouth Schools Music Festival, a music festival that would see the band playing to over 2000 people over the 2 night’s performances.

The band has since been performing in and around the Portsmouth area. They were also fundraising for a new set of pans as the ones they had were around 25 years old and coming to the end of their life span. After much effort, enough money was available to purchase the new pans direct from Trinidad and they arrived some 6 months later.

The band members had to then learn the new layouts as the new pans were slightly different to the previous set. The set list has grown now to over 50 tunes and the band continue to put a smile on people’s faces wherever they play. The players were 11 when they started, but many of them recently started college.

The band continue to perform but due to COVID-19 they have been unable to rehearse since February 2020.

Neil hopes that the band will be altogether again soon and start spreading the sound of the Caribbean around Portsmouth once more. Panpodium wishes Pan Parade Steel Band all the best and hope that they can resume their practice sessions and performances soon and continue spreading the steelpan gospel.