Womadelaide


It 's Sunday night in Adelaide. A sizable crowd is enjoying watching Deborah Conway and Willy Zyglier under the Moreton Bay figs in Botanic Park, Conway's voice cutting through the night, while at the same time another large crowd is enjoying the pop/country-tinged songs of Augie March, including the very popular One Crowded Hour. Close by, the Portuguese fado singer Mariza is defying the music's manifesto of "no happy endings" by making a lot of people very happy. None of this is even happening on the main stage - there, many thousands are awaiting the return of Salif Keita, legend of African music, returning to Australia after 14 years. It must be WOMADelaide.

The quality of musicians and the feeling of being spoiled for choice has not been limited to just this particular time, of course. From the festival's start on Friday evening right to the end, the usual WOMAD dilemma remained - how to fit in so much high quality world music into one's personal timetable without missing something you'll wish you'd seen later. I'm still not sure what the answer is, but it must be said the transition between acts on the various stages was pretty uniformly smooth throughout the weekend, meaning those who left one stage when a particular act finished wouldn't miss much of the next act about to commence in a different area.

But let's start at the beginning. After the traditional Kaurna welcome, the Mahotella Queens provided a strong, powerful start to the weekend. Boasting the same line-up since their formation in 1964, the 'Queens were colourful and assured, and obviously still enjoy themselves. In common with some other performers, the vocals seemed unaffected by age, and in this case, the audience were delighted with what they heard. Concurrently, Chinese flautist Guo Yue provided a musical contrast to a smaller but equally enthralled audience with his meditative music, including the touching pieces Dragonfly and Su Lin.

In fact, contrast was evident in many forms throughout the festival. The obvious example was the weather; 37¡ and uncomfortable on the Saturday, ten degrees cooler the following day with shade at not so high a premium. The drought made the ground drier than I remember from previous years, though there were still plenty of verdant areas too.

Musically, there was of course the expected and welcome contrast in styles between artists. Examples? The Backsliders for blues - excellent playing from all members, with Rob Hirst's drums providing interesting cross rhythms and effective filling of musical spaces. Highlights included Back Top Road, Jack and Thinkin' Man's Drinkin' Man.

Blue King Brown for funkier sounds, with Santana-esque forays into extended instrumental passages focussing on rhythm as on Us And Them. A huge hit with their crowd. Then, a highlight for many people, the Irish jigs and reels of Lunasa who are not only extremely proficient musicians but in Kevin Crawford have a dry and amusing frontman. His comments about sharing each other's sweat were well received on the Saturday afternoon. Both their sets had a similar repertoire, including Morning Nightcap, Lechan Mor and the touching air Absent Friends. They were one of the many bands attracting an audience of literally all ages.

The aforementioned Mariza had an almost Edith Piaf style voice, and looked and sounded like a star, with an evocative, controlled and powerful voice, earning her a deserved encore on the Saturday night. One of many "one show only" acts was the Gotan Project who effectively mixed technology and music. A backdrop of silhouettes and slides added to an already charged atmosphere. With expressive vocals, DJ'ing, a string section, accordion and a bass that verged on crazy-loud (a stage 2 phenomenon, it seems), the huge crowd roared their approval of the unique mix of French and Argentinean music,

A list of highlights would fill several pages (and be a matter of personal taste), so in shorthand, others that caught my eyes and ears over the weekend included the melodic and heartfelt Greek music of Rebetika, the well structured and easy flowing songs of Lior (another favourite with the younger audience) and the confident and assured performance of the Emma Donovan Band. Her voice is a strong instrument and it is put to good use inthe funky/soul/reggae style she favours.

Donovan was also part of one of the overall highlights of the weekend for me, the 'Women's Voices' workshop on Sunday. Imagine her with the Mahotella Queens, Yasmine Levy (Spanish Jewish music, another first rate and wonderfully evocative singer), Lila Downs (from Mexico, a commanding presence with a voice of gentle strength) taking turns at telling stories and singing a song, then coming together to sing a collective improvised song at the end. It was as wonderful as you'd expect. To me, this was more of an "All Star Jam" than the item presented as such later in the day.

The Zoo stage was also host to another highlight the previous night, a rare performance from Kev Carmody. A large crowd took their place early to witness a talkative and relaxed performance, not overly affected by the arthritis that limits his gigs nowadays. Popular songs like Thou Shalt Not Steal and On The Wire were performed along with the unrecorded Bitching Song, about conservative Queensland politics in the Bjelke Peterson years. His didge playing was also a wondrous thing to hear.

The Waifs were no doubt responsible for drawing a lot of people to WOMAD, with this being their first Australian gig for a couple of years. There were no signs of any problems with the performance - except perhaps with the forgetting of lyrics on London Still on Sunday, leading to the change of lyrics to "I'm embarrassed still..." The band held the audience with their various folk/pop styles - in common with so many acts, it was really a case of mutual respect between audience and performers.

Speaking of which, the Kronos Quartet by themselves would be enough to draw a few thousand people, but when joined by Asha Bhosle - whose contribution to Bollywood music is so vast that the word "legend" seems inadequate - and Chinese pipa player, Wu Man, the effect was mesmerising even to those of us who aren't so well versed in the genre. Bhosle's vocals also fit into the category of "unaffected by age".

Indonesian ensemble SambaSunda may just win the prize for greatest musical diversity within one group, with an intriguing mix of gentle vocals, pounding rhythms, and Indonesian, African and Asian influences.

Salif Keita, with full band and singers, had a commanding stage presence with strong and distinctive vocals and was given a huge welcome when he returned to WOMADelaide after 14 years. Songs such as Yambo also featured extended instrumental sections with excellent playing by all concerned but there was never any doubtwho the leader was. Certainly an excellent end to the weekend's proceedings.

There is of course the patented WOMAD moment, where one discovers an act that you either hadn't heard of before, or hadn't experienced live, and the effect is greater than you would have imagined. For me at least, Fema Kuti & the Positive Force fell into that category. With a 14-piece band including brass section, dancers and some nifty sax playing from Kuti himself, the sound was huge and energetic, drawing enormous cheers from the huge crowd. As with Salif Keita, there was never any doubt who the leader was, however. Bang Bang Bang was not just a song title but also an approach to the performance - onesong led straight into the next almost without hesitation, helping to keep the energy flowing.

Perhaps lesser known than the WOMAD moment are various WOMAD laws. To be fair, they're probably more general "large crowd" laws. First, no matter where you sit, someone will eventually try to make a path through your space, no matter how illogical the route. Secondly, if you settle yourself in a relatively quiet space outside the general performance area, a loud conversation will ensue within minutes of sitting down. Apparently, these are natural laws that can never be changed!

Of course, the food and craft stalls, healing village, kids area and wandering performance artists are all important parts of the atmosphere too. In fact, the stalls were doing a healthy trade even before the first notes were played on Friday evening.

As I saw many weary bodies leave Botanic Park on Sunday night though, I couldn't help but think that each of them was taking a bit of the WOMAD experience with them, to bring into their part of thegeneral world. The idea of spreading that feeling to the community piece by piece was a very pleasant thought indeed.

Michael Hunter