On returning home and reporting the good news of what was happening in Trinidad musically, a few men in the Point area who had earlier developed the “iron band” from old pieces of iron, scrap metals, hub caps, old tin pans and sticks which were discarded at the dump site, which is now home to the Port, decided to begin work on building a steelpan. Made from an empty steel oil drum, cut off in varying lengths to emit a range of tones, the pan is put through a process of hammering and heating, thus achieving a chromatic sound. Busta Carty from the Point area, who was very impressed with the steelpan and the sound it created was credited with bringing the first pan into Antigua from Trinidad. The pans built in Trinidad were more advanced than the ones built in Antigua, and as the new invention in music travelled across the island, the race was on to make something similar to the ones built in Trinidad. At that time, no rubber accompanied the sticks that the players used to beat the pans with in Antigua, even though later on, a ball of rubber bands at one end of the stick was introduced to beat the notes.
 
When the first steelband, Hell’s Gate, from the Point area made its way uptown one Saturday morning playing “My basket, my basket, my green and yellow basket,” after weeks upon weeks of rehearsals under the tutelage of arranger, Alexander “Alec” Roberts, the response was so overwhelming, it brought people into St. John’s from all around the island to see and hear the new phenomenon in music. At the time, the instrument was hung with a strap around the neck of each bandsman thus creating a certain type of mobility. This allowed the steelband to travel around the town with ease. That was the official birth of pan and its music into the annals of the Antiguan/Barbudan cultural experience
You can listen to Hells Gate on YouTube.