Kinobe Herbert kicked off the day with his calm vocals and lyrical playing of traditional Ugandan instruments. The sound was so delicate that it was slightly upstaged by the drummers in the workshop who were really rocking, but the PA boosted the delicate sounds well enough. Part
way into his set, I was pleased to see two elderly ladies arrive by bicycles and obviously up for a day out at Oye! Kinobe also utilised the handheld box of tricks that we had noticed yesterday. What is it???Samson Mthombeni came on second with his horn trumpets - "The horns say Hello! to Liverpool" - dressed in even more colour he entertained us with his songs and dancing a his repeated exhortations that inter-racial marriage was ok now that Nelson Mandela had approved it! Maybe this is a bit of a theme with Samson? Anyway his short set was more confident than it had been yesterday, and it went down well.
Hohodza Band are in forced exile from the vile regime of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe and we were all up and dancing along with the band and enjoying the spirit and the joy when the sky opened up and it rained, not just a shower but gallons and gallons of the stuff, perhaps just sent to remind us that you can never really plan for the weather, however clever you may think you have been! It was a huge shame because 95% of the crowd ran for cover, mostly in their cars, and it was left to the handfull of us that didn't care to dance on and just enjoy the rain, and the band played on! The 
crew got the mikes in out of the rain and the monitors covered up, the
show must go on, and so it did, and we had a ball. There's no notes to help me remember the music, but there are images and memories of sheer joy as we danced and danced in the rain while Sefton Park became one big puddle.The rain stayed on for Dobet Gnahore's set too, which was really good and she deserved a bigger crowd. Playing more or less the same set as the previous day, she seemed even more lively and her voice is so powerful.
To end the day we have Ba Cissoko kora player extraordinaire! What a sound. It was still raining, but not nearly so much and a fairly decent crowd regrouped to hear these 2 guys rocking out on koras with huge African percussion to match. It was too wet to write anything down, and it doesn't really matter, they are fantastic and there will be other opportunities to write more about them I have no doubt.
A huge thanks to Paul, Kenny and the Oye! crew for their hard work - lets hope we can keep the funding going for next year too!
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