review by Zoe

27th-29th July 2001
Rivermead, Reading, Berks.

WOMAD has begun well - the sun is shining!

Having missed out on Glastonbury this year, we decided to go to WOMAD festival - World of Music, Arts and Dance. With a four year old in tow we felt that WOMAD would provide us with the festival atmosphere, some good world music and lots of entertainment for kids. We werenÂ’t wrong - the festival is a pleasant blend of music, food and play for all ages, made particularly enjoyable by the plentiful rays of sunshine we got this weekend.

As I’m English I will obviously complain about the weather too - it was a bit too bloody hot, meaning that we didn’t do as much around the festival as we would have liked. On Sunday we even refrained from moving from our camp site till much later in the day to give the kids and ourselves a rest from the sweltering heat. Instead we practised our ‘Poi’ skills which was very appropriate to the festival spirit (see the Poi-mania review).

WOMAD is a festival like many others - youÂ’ll recognise the same Veggie-burger stands, Henna tattoo artists and silly hat stalls that you see at most of the summers events. The big difference with this event is the lack of well known bands performing. The focus here is really on world music and there is plenty of it to be had. If youÂ’re like me and know little about the stuff, it really doesnÂ’t matter. There is a great sense of freedom to be gained from having no particular plans for your festival viewing - it means that you stumble across things which are totally new and inspiring. We found ourselves in this situation many times this weekend.

Friday
On Friday we relaxed in the shade of the beautifully decorated Siam Tent which had huge flourescent hangings on the ceiling with big spinning wheels of flourescent web hanging down. We listened to the rythmic sounds of Afel Bocoum from Mali here before moving on to wander the markets and later returning to Siam to see the colourful Imbizo from Zimbabwe with Nuclearte from Italy playing together. Imbizo were great, singing wonderful harmonies a cappella and dancing to the rythum with such enthusiasm that they even got a hot, tired audience on their feet. Nuclearte joined Imbizo to blend a European sound with an African beat and harmony. The lead singer of Nucleate, Rossana Filippone, had an interesting voice which was high and strong blending cleverly with the deep African harmonies. However, we were a little disappointed not to see more of Imbizo on their own, as they really were the main attraction of that world coupling.

Saturday
Saturday saw us enter the festival arena after the mid day sun when we stumbled immediately across Tarras from the UK on the Open Air Stage. This ‘folk’ band played a wonderful collection of songs which ranged in style from folk to blues to an Irish jig! They used a range of musical mediums, including singers, keyboards, drums, violin, obo, sax, guitar, bass guitar and lute, which were all played excellently to produce a most uplifting set. The humility of the band and their general humour, endeared them to the crowd as they chatted away noting that they hadn’t played such a large venue before and catching up with friends seen in the audience! We left this performance smiling and hoping to see them play again soon.

We next found ourselves in a completely different musical genre - dancing to the sound and sight of an African group singing a capella and tribal dancing. This was on the Village stage and the group were Siyaya, from Zimbabwe. Half way through their set the whole troupe of around 15 singers/dancers changed their clothes from traditional tribal wear to modern shirts, trousers and waistcoats. They then continued to sing and dance, getting the crowd up on their feet and moving. The music, dance and clothes all blended together to give a distinct impression of old and young Zimbabwe meeting and moving on - happily this is what the festival programme tells me was intended!

After a break, some much needed and very yummy nosh and the recruitment of a babysitter (ahh, 13 year old girls are smashing!) we went back into the festival arena for an evening of entertainment. It was terribly busy at points, with huge crowds at the Open Air Stage, preventing us from walking past and a mass of people watching Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali Group from Pakistan on the Village Stage. We stopped here for a while and listened to the passionate singing and playing of this group who used their voices with two key singers and others in harmony to bring the accompanying instruments (a tabla and two harmoniums) to a crescendo and back down again.

As the evening wore on we wandered around the site which was surprisingly closed. The closure of stalls is a real shame as it reduces the atmosphere of the festival greatly and creates dark corners which are menacing where they have previously been enticing. We caught some of DJ Derek spinning some SKA tunes while we drank coffee and then we went on to pop into the Whirl-y-gig. We missed out on that though as the queue stretched endlessly round the sports centre holding it. Instead we stumbled upon a little gathering at the Amnesty International stand. It was good to hear some dance music and have a bit of a rave with happy people at the end of the night, but unfortunately we couldnÂ’t stay as small children needed to be tended to.

Sunday
Sunday was a lazy day as the sun beat down, we sat around our campsite for most of the day while the children played. We went into the festival in time for the procession which was superb. The childrenÂ’s make-it tents had been full of busy kids over the three days making all sorts of outfits and, flags, banners and big structures of fish and horses etc. They were joined through the festival in procession by two samba bands and other assorted musicians, including the childrenÂ’s drum workshop. This was smashing as the children marched on smiling and proud of their crafts.

Amnesty International had giant figurines of Refugees marching on too which completed their festival long campaign to ‘Respect Refugees’. Whether all those people wearing their Amnesty stickers and watching the parade actually did respect the numerous refugees going round the site in search of money is questionable, but perhaps a few minds were opened by the campaign.

The main attraction for the evening was Asian Dub Foundation who were great. We all danced to this UK band whose heavy beats set us all dancing from age four to forty. We left the arena a very happy group who found WOMAD friendly and safe. There were more kids at this event than anywhere I’ve seen before (see the Kids WOMAD review), there were loads of good food stalls and interesting crafts. But something was missing - there was no edge to this event, no particularly strong festival atmosphere. The crowd are so predominently white and middle class, that you felt a little stifled by the ‘right-on’ nature of things. We are sure that the stall holders loved it though as surely there were many pounds spent by this wealthy set of festival goers, perhaps that’s why they all closed early?!

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