2 posts tagged “womad”
The music was pretty sensational this year, and I didn't hear the half of the half of it. One of the fun things about this kind of festival is half missing or glimpsing stuff: like walking past a tent where Candi Staton's doing Young Hearts Run Free, having a bit of a dance in the mud outside and passing on, knowing that you won't be seeing her ever again, probably.
Two real highlights:
Samba Mapangala and Orchestra Virunga, Congolese soukous via Nairobi. Now soukous is the most insouciant and hedonistic music there is, often to the point of pointlessness,
but the band really got some stuff going -
Bassekou Kouyate. From the oldest of the griot families of Mali, Bassekou's decided to take the hip sideman's instrument, the ngoni, and make an orchestra out of it. It's normally a little thing goatherds and hunters stuff in their pack to amuse themselves with in the evenings, but Bassekou has found some whopper gourds and made ngonis of all sizes, including a bass, reminding one of the guitarón as big as a rowboat in Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday. The result is spectacular:
Here's the email I got from the organisers two days before the festival:
** Weather and site update **
The festival will be going ahead this weekend as planned. The site has
not been affected by flooding as it has a clay soil on limestone brash
and is on high ground, allowing efficient drainage. The ground,
including the camping and parking areas, is still solid. There is
trackway for all the main routes of the festival site.
Despite wading through mud all weekend it was a good one. Some of the best Womad gigs I can remember, and there were even a few grassy bits around the campsite. Can't wait til next year.
