WOMAD 2011

Date: 03 September 2011 16:34:33

It has taken me forever to upload more than one photo a day, so I haven't yet written about Womad and Greenbelt. I've been procrastinating this afternoon though, and so now all the photos are up :)

This is to just briefly record some of my highlights from Womad this year. Womad is really all about the music, and it was a great lineup this year. Highlights for me were Mahala Rai Banda from Romania (who I saw before a few years ago at Celtic Connections), Majorstuen from Norway (whose latest CD I am playing to death in the car), Afrocubism who are (as the name suggests) a collaboration between artists from Cuba (led by Eliades Ochoa, who I saw at Womad a couple of years ago in his own right, and who plays with Buena Vista Social Club) and Africa (led by Malian legend Touamane Diabate), and Lau (who are 2/3 from Scotland and 1/3 from England and who were brilliant). We saw a number of other groups and artists too - Baaba Maal was amazing, but we were miles away from the stage so couldn't really appreciate him so much, likewise Gogol Bordello (and, to show my age, there I was, whilst all around me were moshing to their 'gypsy punk', sitting in my camping chair like Lady Muck). Rodrigo y Gabriela also sounded great, they are Mexican guitarists but they were so popular we had to sit outside the Siam tent so could only really hear the loud bits. I'd love to see them again somewhere more intimate. I also liked 9Bach from Wales and the beautiful Portuguese fado singer Ana Moura. Booker T Jones was brilliant (especially the Test Match Special theme which really got the crowd going). Random choice of the festival was Las Balkanieras, three girls from Croatia, Bosnia and Russia who basically were Womad meets Eurovision. The programme said something along the lines of "they won't be troubling the stuffy musicologists, but they'll be having too good a time to care", and that pretty much summed them up.

Any of these would be worth checking out, but as I say it's Majorstuen who are currently being played to death in the car. They are a 5 piece group who all play violin (one of them also plays the cello sometimes, not simultaneously obviously) and their sound is really interesting. The programme reckoned that a group of Norwegian violinists sounded very like a group of Irish violinists, but I don't agree with that. Actually the more I listen to them the more I think they sound like the Swedish nyckelharpa - it's a very jangly, chordal sound which I think sounds very very Scandinavian - evocative of the vast empty spaces and the creativity of the population. And that is about as Pseud's Corner as I'm going to get. If you can't be doing with that, listen to Las Balkanieras :)

Non-musical highlight was Lah-di-da loos which was such a brilliant idea - basically ultra-posh portaloos. They were oversubscribed, did break down on occasions, but oh the relief at standing in a queue and being able to breathe and it not be pongy! And to sit on porcelain! And to be able to put your bag down on the floor and not worry about what it was soaking up! It was £8 for unlimited festival use (bargain) or £2 an individual go (not a bargain), they were open 9-9 during the day, and whilst the queue first thing in the morning was long (and a few people were a bit arsey about that) I think it was brilliant. They also had tables with mirrors and free face and hair products, I didn't really bother with all that but plenty of people did, it was very popular. It is a new business, and their first time at Womad, and they hadn't anticipated the demand, so I hope for next time they have more loos and perhaps even introduce a limit to the number of tickets sold (though I realise they have to make their money somehow). Definitely a great idea though.

Here's a selection of photos I took at the festival: