Saturday review

Having spent most of Friday not moving from the main arena, my intention was to see a bit more of what WOMAD had to offer. Getting breakfast at the café in the campsite and relaxing in the warmth of the campsite, after being rudely awoken far too early by a zealous train driver and his horn. Once in the arena it’s noticeably quite busy and there appears (to me anyway) to be more general festival goers in the crowd than previous years and less newbies (new to festivals) about. There’s clearly also a lot of day tickets on site early as the queues at wristband exchange are quite long.

The programme of events for the Saturday started earlier today and we discovered WOMAD Nomads – entertainment for kids - for the first time. As well as discovering the festival within a festival at the Rivermead, where it seemed many festival goers intended to stay all weekend. Looking at the pool as the heat rose made me wish I’d brought my swimming costume. Deciding our daughter would do WOMAD Nomads tomorrow and a friend volunteering to sign her up, we headed for the Children’s Tents to sign her up for some craft workshops there. Before heading down to the far end of the site to the River Stage.

Matthaios Tsahourides – river stage
There’s a very relaxed feeling at this end of the WOMAD arena and it also seems to be the warmest part of the site. Both those phenomena could well be down to the Organic Beer Tent next to it! Matthaios is Greek and plays a three string bottle shaped pontic lyra. But the amount of sound he illicits from it makes it sound like it has far more strings. His playing is masterful and he creates a soundscape sometimes Mediterranean, sometimes Eastern, sometimes Irish and sometimes like the sound of Scottish Highlanders! Amazing!

Lura – Siam tent
Wearing a bright green dress Lura looks and sounds stunning. She has the ability to meld harmonies of hope and despair together like a Siren from Cape Verde. Her music is beautiful and has me scrambling for the Songlines tent nearby to seek out her CDs. Hopefully we’ll see and hear her again.

Mara! And the Martenitsa Choir – open air stage
The band before Mara! Were drummers Dulsori who I’d briefly seen on the Friday getting the crowd going at the Village Stage. They’d sounded terrific then and I arrived back at the main stage to be told such before settling down to watch this choir from Australia who played and sang Bulgarian music. A strange combination and after a while I begin to wonder why you’d want to start a Bulgarian choir. The music is pretty subdued and the singing very restrained. I’m sure some World music fans would have loved it but to it sounded flat and slow, until the last track where they suddenly livened up just in time for us to move to see Pama International.

Pama International – Siam tent
They are introduced as newcomers to WOMAD and made to feel welcome, more so considering half their band is still in an airport somewhere else. Even without a (I’m guessing) saxophonist and a bigger horn section these purveyors of ska sound terrific. Really terrific, probably the best ska vocals I’ve ever heard from a middle aged white guy. The sound gets us all on our feet and skankin to their beats. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the Siam tent has the best programming of the daytimes at WOMAD.

Jaojoby – open air stage
With a charismatic singer and some fantastic rhythms, this band we’re told usually play acoustic however today they certainly are plugged in and the Madagascan is fantastically good entertainment. Great stuff and another highlight of the day.

OKI Dub Ainu Band – village stage
Looking (and sounding) a little like an anime cartoon and playing bizarre home made wood block guitars these guys were tremendous, really enjoyable to watch. Dressed in traditional robes looking a cross between a Samurai and a Maori costume and wearing a giant head scarf the lead singer belted out remote northern Japanese (Ainu) stylings with dub reggae – basslines courtesy of a common all garden bass guitar. The whole thing looked a bit weird but was great entertainment and sounded pretty excellent too. Even a bit of rain didn’t put us off as Oki said “Great festival, I like it.”

The Fatback Band – open air stage
Disco groove, this was either going to be cringeworthy or terrific and I wasn’t sure which. As it turns out it’s all rather groovy with ‘Do The Bus Stop’ being the highlight and they play a fair few other tunes too as we boogie around under darkening skies.

Slowly the rain gets heavier and as unprepared as we are for rain we have to head for the campsite to get waterproofs. A bad idea as it turns out as the rain becomes heavier and we don’t leave to return to the arena instead opting to remain under the gazebo until the rain subsides. Which means I miss the recommended Argentinean accordion maestro Chango Spasiuk and we don’t go back into the arena until shortly before Saturday’s headliner.

Youssou N’Dour and Super Etoile – open air stage
What can I say? He was superb, the sound was perfect the lighting wonderful and it was a near perfect set, even the sound was louder! Afro-pop it may be but he has to be one of the best exponents of it in the world. His mix of jazz, soul and hip-hop is just masterful and it’s a jaw dropping night. Made even more special with the audience participation and of course the breathtaking ‘Seven Seconds’. His voice may well be special but tonight his backing band are what really impress me, with a fantastic guitarist and rhythm section they really create a vibrant backdrop for his lyrics. Possibly even taking time for a jam along the way, a truly memorable performance.

Although there are more bands on other stages to listen to, we know we’ve seen the best of the night’s offerings so we head back to the tent to put children to bed and enjoy a glass of wine or two under the stars.

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