WOMAD Festival 2009 – Day One

July 27, 2009

The 27th World of Music and Dance festival was to be this particular hack’s induction to WOMAD. After a damp start, The Skatalites get festivities underway on Thursday night. Consequently, Friday morning smells of patchouli and musty marijuana smoke. Traversing the site with barely a soul in sight, actor Pete Postlethwaite seems to be on positively sparkling form considering he’s somewhat laboriously pumping up a double airbed. Now we are off, off to The Big Red Tent to imbibe Los Desterrados‘ lugubrious, pan-European, Sephardic sounds which are romantically delivered with ornate use of flute and violin harmonies. A little of their Latin flavour is preserved, distilled and discharged by the intoxicating and hugely entertaining Cimarron at the large, blue Siam tent. Hailing from the cattle-rearing region of Llanos Orientales, Colombia and with a majority of the band sporting Stetsons, an air of menace accompanies the group. Bandolas and harps are picked with speed, accuracy and passion and their debut show at WOMAD is brought to climax with a dazzling dance-off between the percussionist and both vocalists.

Neneh Cherry and husband Burt Ford‘s latest project, cirKus, however, leaves far more to be desired. With some of the least convincingly played guitar parts aired at the festival yet, this flawed trip-hop foray proves to be little more than stinking folly. The final straw comes when Ford dedicates a song to the Prime Minister. “I can’t remember his name, but he is an asshole.” Tedious. Far more memorable than either Ford or Brown is Buena Vista Social Club member Eliades Ochoa, who positively lights up the Open Air Stage. Backed by a band cloaked in red shirts, Ochoa wears black and sports his trademark  stetson. Drawing the disparate Womadians together, the beguiling Cuban rhythms cause the crowd to start swaying, strangely – a pattern that will find itself repeated over the course of the weekend. Regardless, when Ochoa plays ‘Chan Chan’ all thought evaporates and the hairs collectively rise across WOMAD’s neck.

Over at the BBC3 stage and the Dennis Bovell Dub Band is delighting an audience seeking shelter amongst the leafy enclave by dousing them in washes of reverb and delay. A British Reggae great – and a tremendous bass player to boot – he ploughs through classic tunes like ‘Rowin’ and ‘Dubmaster’ with ‘Oh Mama, Oh Papa’ perhaps being the most apt song played all weekend as the WOMAD festival rapidly begins to resemble the World of Mums and Dads. After Bovell’s performance, there seems little point watching the Mad Professor‘s dub show which consists of button-pushing on a laptop and is as such, about as interesting as a chemical toilet. Postlethwaite favourites The Black Arm Band take to the Siam stage with Aboriginal frontman Archie Roach claiming they are about to share “Stories to show the two worlds of Australia”. It’s a shame then that they proceed to represent them with interminably dull music with some plain post-Colonial thought thrown in for good measure, “We have survived the white man’s world, and you can’t change that.”

Unable to last the duration, I spend £10 on the white man’s food and beer before settling in to watch the ostentatious but truly legendary ‘King’ Solomon Burke. Surreptitiously slipping on-stage by being obscured by a veritable bevvy of beauties, the preacher takes his seat on a glittering throne. With a voice softer than golden syrup, laden with enough love to father 21 children, Burke is a typically dramatic performer even when he can no longer move around unassisted. With a raft of hits under his outsized belt, the songs keep coming with ‘Don’t give up on me’, ‘Diamond in your mind’ and ‘Everybody needs Somebody’ all eclipsed by a timely rendition of Sam Cooke classic ‘A change is gonna come’. Though the set is filled with gushing schmaltz (I lost count of the amount of times Burke breathed “I love you” to the crowd), it could detract from neither the fun nor perceptibly touching moments, even if they were few.

Related posts:

1. WOMAD Festival 2009 – Day Three
2. WOMAD Festival 2009 – Day Two
3. Cornbury Festival 2009 (preview)
4. Cornbury Festival 2009
5. High Voltage Festival – Saturday

Posted in Music Reviews