Thursday July 27th and we cover the 200 miles to Reading without any major problems, despite the intense heat, arriving on site at about 19:45 to find that the 2nd dedicated campervan field is already full. We just about manage to fit in a corner with some help from a steward and pretty soon we are configured and cooking up a fine meal. We decide to crash out early to prepare for the rigours of the following day.
Friday July 28th. Another very hot day, Gilly is rather unwell so we sit around listening to the cricket on Test Match Special before setting off to the arena at lunchtime. Its a long walk but we soon have our festival wristbands (no queue to speak of here thank goodness) and find ourselves drinking green tea in the Tiny Tea Tent and talking to Dave and Jude from the Tannat Valley who told us all about the Workhouse Festival. After that we sat ourselves down in the already dusty field and listened to Verba Buena from New York who delivered salsa with a twist of what used to be called fusion. I made special note to look for a track called "Sunshine" (Solar?) which was heavier than the rest. Anyway they went down well with the crowd. Straight from there across to the big blue Siam Tent that was already packed out for Salsa Celtica - with a small band of hardcore fans stood up at the front and several thousand others sat in anticipation of the start, we managed to find a slightly shaded spot. The set seemed to be more Salsa than Celtica at first, then there was a sudden change in direction, the pipes firing up and the sound becoming guitar and accordian led. We couldn't see very much at all being sat down and surrounded by a constant flux of people at the edge of the tent, but you could tell that the band were going down well, and I felt the applause was stronger for the more celtic pieces. A huge cheer for a guest appearence by Eliza Carthy to sing on Grey Gallito - a beautiful and heartfelt performance. The band gave a brilliant encore which really had the crowd moving and they were rewarded with well deserved massive applause.
The arena is already very busy, people bustling around constantly, the car parks outside heaving, its really hot and dusty, but the good news is that there are real toilets here and so far they seem to be working well.
Back soon later to the Siam tent for one of our top picks for the weekend:Värttinä
Lined up at the back of the wide stage, 6 men dressed in black, playing violin, accordion, bpuzouki, bass, drums and guitar, whilst up front, three women dressed in all white with a touch of colour in the form of reddish woven belts. There is instant high octane singing and backing music, being familiar with the latest album, "Miero" we knew what to expect and we weren't dissapointed! Despite singer Mari Kaasinen being away to have a baby, there was no compromise in vocal performance because producer Aija Puurtinen had stepped in to provide the middle voice.
Using the close and distinctive harmonies that come out of Finland, the 3 singers roam around the stage and the movement is often theatrical with gestures between themselves and out to the audience, with plenty of facial expression to further the effect.
For the song "Maaria" the 3 women were joined by fiddle player Lassi Logren in a beguiling a'capella, his voice almost wailing above their harmonies like a distant voice echoing in the hills. Truly beautiful. Earlier Logren was to be seen playing single notes on just one string of his instrument, but he was bringing the bow in from being arms length outstreched away from him and almost whipping the string. Bassist Hannu Rantanen provided super bass, but seemed to me to be dissatisfied with his back row status and was constantly goating about and trying to be noticed more.
Drummer Jaakko Lukkarinen was a different matter though, his beats in order and without histrionics, In "Maaria" (I think) I caught him pushing the head of drumstick across a cymbal, resulting in a dreadful screeching noise, bad enough for him to grimace across to the stage sound crew then smile, but later he became a one man earthquake as he switched to brushes but beat every skin and cymbal he had for all he was worth, the podium and all upon it shaking fearfully.
Later we were taught the Finnish equivalent of "La La La" which predictably enough seemed to have at least 12 syllables!
The encore to this super set included both saxaphone and a lovely instrumental section with the accordian and violin sounding well together. A very well received performance from a great band. Definately a highlight!
After a meal from Leon's, accompanied by Bellowhead on the outdoor stage, a concept which works a little better in this large arena, but still sounds unwieldy to me despite it's ability to put a spring in people's steps, we sampled a few shops and an ice cream before returning to the outdoor stage for Los de Abajo - a 10 piece band from Mexico who seemed to have blended Cuban music with Madness. We heard them play "The Lunatics have taken over the asylum" before we could see them and when we did there was somebody on stage with a huge bass drum, making me smile and think -"They'll hear the bugger now....!" The crowd up front were going manic and towards the end we realised that none other than Dennis Rollins was playing trombone with them. Wish we'd been up front for all that really.
Back over at the Siam tent, The Gotan Project had draped the stage in white and were dressed up to the nines and stood in front of back projected images and movies playing subtle and interesting music that demanded a conentrated listen. Sadly the area outside the tent was already 20 people deep all trying to get a glimpse, so we filed that one away for a future date.
This crowdedness was becoming really noticable, with a great deal of mobile phone traffic "I'm by the 4th flag on the left" and so many people - I'm sure there are more than last year. My feet are filthy with the dust, there are still golf balls in the ground and there is a constant smell of food, most of it really tempting! The general atmosphere though is wonderful - you can dress up as anything (and many do!) and everyone is laid back and friendly, all out to have a good time and enjoy good music.
Salif Keita was so much easier to listen to, his bluesy African style cutting through the night, and later we would find oursleves, as ever, attracted to the tent selling lamps next to the far side of the Siam tent, a magical place at night, made more so tonight because of the fitting atmospheric music of Anoushka Shankar next door, playing her own amazing compositions to a mainly seated and rapt audience, her Sitar being accompanied by various percussion and vocals providing a good musical end to the first day before we set off on the long trek back to the van.....
Saturday July 29th
We walk in through the tent city that makes up the camp site, and then past the rows of stalls with all sorts of things on sale, then through the steam fair (more on that story later!) and on into the main arena where there are yet more stalls.... The retail therapy oportunities are really immense at WOMAD and nearly every stall has it's own music - the colours are vibrant and there are really some pleasant smells eminating from some of them - eg The Soap Gallery - where you can buy soap that looks and smells good enough to eat!
It's really hot again and we are dressed for the weather and seek out the shade of a flag near the mainstage to see "Think of One" from Belgium. A funky rhythm section with brass and vocalists with big drums and dancers. In fact there was mayhem on the stage - at least 9 people at any one time - but they produce a great heavy band sound, accompanied by the host of WOMAD flags rasping in the stiff breeze. Now a tenth member appears, a large black mama singing to a crazy brass section playing fast with a barrage of percussion behind, a small energetic crowd was bouncing at the front, while many others were enjoying lunch in the sun to this frenetic music.
At the end of the set all 12 members were just either singing and/or playing percussion in an African manner, then a Ram like trumpet sound came over, and a strange Magic Roundabout style trolley came on, bearing a pole with 4 loudspeakers on the top - no idea why, or anything, but it was just one more mad thing from a band with a good show and energetic music.
After the set, the crowd ups and moves to the next venue like the Israelites moving in the desert with all their chattels! For us it's back to the Siam Tent for "Etran Finatawa" and more desert blues. Here though we have the Niger version - with amazing costumes and face paint. The 6 members are arranged with 3 of them sat cross legged on the stage playing assorted drums, including gourd and water filled gourd I think - the standing members consist of one electric guitar and vocals, electric bass and one vocalist (who had a tambourine like device strapped to his ankle).
The music is trance inducing - not unlike Tinariwen in some ways, slow, steady, relentless, the vocals being enhanced by a much higher, almost wailing kind of singing from the central vocalist, who also manages to move around the stage as if on castors, he is so upright and smooth in his movements.
Sometimes the guitar sounds just like Neil Young bashing away on "Down By the River", but strangely transposed to this African scene. The set is very well received by the large crowd, then it's off again to.....
"Emmanuel Jal and band" on the main outdoor stage ... you get the drift - 20-odd thousand people on the move every hour - we've seen Emmanuel before, but this band has a nice sound, quite Fugees-like and of course his great message of peace and hope "I have lots to say about war in my country and everything", he says, "but in the end I believe we are going to party!" His strong message is forcefully delivered in the modern style, lots of rap and samples and so on alongside the great music. Emmanuel gets stronger and more confident each time we see him, look out world, he's coming!
Our next choice was one "Billy Bragg" - The Progressive Patriot as he styles himself these days, but not to sing, no, we sat down, and listened to an hour of high quality oratory by the man concerning the basic human rights, on why his home town voted in the BNP in the local council elections, and on child torture. This was part of one of WOMAD's other faces, there were many speakers, many petitions and lots of issue based groups with information, books, t-shirts and so on, and some free peanuts too!
Following this I trekked off to Cavensham to find a cash point, despite what it says in the program there were none on site that I could see, and none of the marshals I asked knew of any either. This is a major oversight in an otherwise well run festival, especially one were you can spend so much money so easily! Got back just in time to catch the end of a very loud and lively set from the great "Kanda Bongo Man" on the mainstage.
"Toumani Diabaté and his Symetric Orchestra" - in the Siam Tent. Incessant - like the festival, it feels like you are always missing a lot if you just sit down. We ARE sat down for this - the tent is full, we can't see a thing but it sounded great. There at least 9 people on the stage, the music was very much kora driven and as you'd expect - many tracks from the latest album, but most interesting was the beginner's guide to the kora given by Toumani himself, in broken English, explaining how each finger played which part and then he put them all together and left us in no doubt that a) he is a master of his craft, and b) the kora is a complex but wonderful instrument.
After this we enjoyed coffee at the One World Tent getting some more serious stuff in, before returning to the Siam Tent to hear "Nancy Griffith" who delighted us by singing "Gulf Coast Highway" just as we arrived wondering if she might, going on with "From a Distance" and "Listen to the Radio". Her band had the standard lineup - bass, drums, piano and guitar, but they were a good band, and Nancy's voice was terrific. Here songs were all strong too, no froth here, just time for a dance then before....
Back to the mainstage for "Ska Cubano" - "This is like a musical trolley dash" said Gilly as we once again tromped from stage to stage with countless others, meeting countless others making the opposite journey... take the Buena Vista Social Club and cross them with Madness and you will understand how this band sounded.... but by now we were suffering from music fatigue and decide to wander around a bit - to Carter's Steam Fair where we had a go on the gallopers - powered by an 1890 steam engine with a steam organ and everything. Talking to the man at the firebox door, I discovered that there was a very similar device still extant, built only a few weeks apart from this one, and both had recently suffered the same problem with a broken main crank - built in obselescence after a century of work? Sadly the weather turns rather wet and we return to the arena to seek shelter and to see "Femi Kuti" on the mainstage. Femi is a powerhouse in the Afropop scene, and he was sounding great, but this fatigue had really set hold of us, and we just felt inclined to wander - ending up almost inevitably at the lamp tent and catching a little of Indian superstar "Trilok Gurtu" next door in the Siam Tent - again wonderfully atmospheric and calming after a hectic day.
Sunday July 30th
Another right sunny day - and a day that was to become Floppy's - you can read all about that here - Floppy's WOMAD blog - but first we enjoyed listening to the neighbour's comments about The Archers omnibus - and then the other neighbour put on some great music - a good way of selling it - which was exactly why he was doing it - sold 1 CD for a pound!
Amazingly we discover a whole area of the site that we' managed to completely miss during the first 2 days - plenty of new retail oportunities in a sea of noise and colour, but it's so hot and I'm feeling rather under the weather myself, so it's hard to be too keen! Floppy manages to wade through it all and makes lots of new friends and we struggle through to the Siam tent just in time for Mali's Djelimady Tounkara - a very hypnotic and colourful band with a slow, wandering, rythmic sound, all dressed in very colourful get ups and a female vocalist in shiny pink. There is some dueling going on between the musicians, some of it with really long phrases, sometimes reminiscent of Habib Koite, sometimes with convoluted vocals, but nearly always over a nice slow rhythm, just right for the heat of the day.
Japan provided one of the musical highlights of the festival in the form of the Pascals who managed to go from that famous opening few bars of the theme to Jaws into a streetband style dance tune , then they had a violin piece in the manner of Ed Alleyne, then somebody playing the saw and melodica - as Gilly said - a really good soundtrack to the setting that is WOMAD. Top notch stuff.
The blurb for Laura Veirs suggested we find a quiet corner to take in her act - some hope! We managed to squeeze in on the edge of the huge crowd around the village stage - but it was worth it - she plays a lazy Niel Young style electric guitar and sings a bit like Suzanne Vega at times. Her band of piano, bass and drums is augmented with a trombone on some of her older songs, an interesting effect. A bit of a nod towards country and western too at times, but the sound suffered from a bit too much arpeggio keyboards. Otherwise a good set.
Konono No. 1 were the last band to get any notes - and sadly they were not up to expectations - it frankly sounded like a tinny a.m. radio on too loud and was a bit repetitive and far too grating for me today! I know it's supposed to sound like that via the homemade gear, but it didn't do it for me - maybe I was just too tired and hot! Having said that they had some magic rhythms and Floppy seemed to enjoy it!
Festival fatigue was now firmly established and we had had enough of all this dashing around so we chilled out (shopping and eating!) before settling down at the now cooler and slightly damp Radio 3 stage for the last act of the weekend - Moussu T e Lei Jovents from Marsailles - now you should soon be able to hear this set for yourselves on the Radio 3 WOMAD page - but it's not there yet. It was interesting, the band's CD player kept breaking down, exposing that backing tracks were in use, and letting the set slowly descend into anarchy - the damp crowd didn't seem to mind much, and the bird puppets got a few laughs, but we felt that they didn't live up to the promise of the billing as "Andy Kershaw's favourite live act" or indeed up to what we could remember of them playing on the radio, but it was quite good really - not too taxing!
After that we took one more round of the site and discovered a few stalls selling off stock very cheap so that they didn't have to pack it all away, spent the last of our cash there and set off back along the path to the van for the last time on this event.
Totally worn out but content, we discovered the day after that we couldn't leave for a while because the queue to get off the site was just solid until mid-afternoon, no problem, we enjoyed chilling, our neighbour sold us another CD and before long we were heading home, or at least until Oxford where the traffic jams began, but Floppy kept the blues at bay, entertaining the other motorway users and gaining many new friends in the process!
So that was WOMAD 2006 - so much music, so little time, so many people, so little peace, so much food, so few meal times, so many shops, no cash machines. Would we do it again - oh yes! Maybe we would approach things differently, and hopefully in better health, but we'll be back (unless we get tickets for the Cambridge Folk Festival....!)
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