It’s that time of year again. Friday night marked the start of the highly anticipated 2011 carnival season. The season of soca fired off at the Mas Camp on Oxford Road in New Kingston with its pre-carnival Fete.

It was near 10 o’clock when the Observer team made its way into the venue. In true Mas Camp style, the venue was only dotted with a few revellers at that hour, but this would change in a big way within the hour.

With the selectors from the hugely popular Renaissance Disco provided patrons with the hottest and latest soca beats, this would set the stage for the what was to transpire at the kick-off event.

The venue would then move from being sparsely populated to jam packed as more socaphiles made their way inside to gyrate to music of Destra, Allison Hinds, Bunji Garlin and his wife Fay-Ann Lyons, JW and Blaze among other soca greats.

Inside the VIP area Bacchanal Jamaica director Michael Ammar rehearsed his latest Carnival steps including his version of Palance. At the Appleton bar, the courteous and sexy attendants kept the mostly Appleton mixes coming much to the delight of the energetic bacchanal fans.

Soon it was time for Kurt Riley.

The Party Animal, not leaving out his dancehall roots, did an excellent job at keeping the revellers warmed up with his wicked selections from dancehall’s Demarco, Busy Signal, Beenie Man and Vybz Kartel — a teaser of what was to come at the wild Bacchanal Jamaica Soca season.

There will be a number of pulsating bacchanal events for 12 weeks, starting on February 18. These include the Bacchanal Fridays, Socacise, Socacise Fit Fete, Beach J’ouvert, Soca at the Sandbar, Bacchanal J’ouvert, with the bacchanal road march bringing activities to a close on May 1.

Sponsors of this the 2011 bacchanal season include Supreme Ventures, Pure Country, Jamaica Observer, Ocean Spray, Powerade, Genesis, Fame 95, Ammarls among others.

— Simone Morgan

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Not even crutches could keep young Michael Ammar a way from Mas Camp. Here he shares a moment with friend Stephanie Lee.