Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth
March 14-16 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

“I WAS TOLD that I was too fat, too short, too old, too black to be a famous singer”. It took a much-rejected singer and her cooler than cool (i.e. ice cold) band to blow a languid, hazy WOMAD Festival up, and in the process stunned a crowd into dancing like maniacs, a crowd that had previously been comfortable sitting back and soaking up the sounds. This year’s Festival lacked the energy that last year’s had, probably owing to the fact it was wet and cold last year so everyone had no option but to dance. It wasn’t as full as previous concerts, but it showed that it’s well worth putting on the festival every year. And while last year had a seemingly neverending cavalcade of breathtaking performances, this year was a bit more sedate. Of course, with a festival where flowery prints and comfortable pants abound, and the cigarettes are more likely to be filled with New Zealand-made produce (a good potential for the Buy NZ campaign?), you’d expect quiet lounging around in the stunning Bowl of Brooklands. But thanks to the best efforts of Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, and others, WOMAD continues to be the best chance New Zealanders can see the brilliant music from around the world, and have a good time doing so.

Unfortunately for the organisers, the loss of Césaria Évora left a huge gaping hole. She is an legendary figure who epitomises “world” music (whatever that ridiculous genre term means). You can’t help but feel that her stroke (and hopefully she recovers fully) robbed the festival of a truly brilliant centrepiece. That said, there was much to savour.

It was Sharon Jones who was the absolute highlight. Her stage performance (despite suffering from food poisoning) on the Saturday night was high energy and compelling, and her staunch band executed funk as it’s meant to be done. She got members of the crowd up who were suitably ridiculous, and belted at everyone with her powerful voice. Other standouts were Burkina Faso’s Farafina, whose vivacious and incredible stage presence made good on their promise that “we are going to sing, we are going to dance”. Their rhythms were breathtaking, intricate beats woven together, and vocal harmonies and melodies that were plucked from impossibility. Rounding off my triumvirate of superlative performances was the New York DJ, Nickodemus. Closing off Saturday night with technically skilled DJing, and dropping some killer samples, he got the cramped crowded moving into the night.

But there were plenty of other highlights. Being a huge Beirut fan, I saw both performances. Their Friday night’s show audience provoked the band to quip later that it was a paedophile’s dream, with a particular set of hippies (if you were there you know who I mean) throwing themselves at the precocious Zach Condon and his merry band of multi-instrumentalists. I couldn’t help but think the band were better suited to a smaller intimate venue (members later admitting to me that their Auckland King’s Arm show was “nasty”, which was presumably a good thing) as opposed to playing with a moat in front of them. That said, they played some of their great songs (including ‘Postcards from Italy’ and ‘Nantes’), and also a tribute to former collaborators A Hawk and a Hacksaw, who themselves had played a great show in Wellington in the Festival a couple of weeks back.

Mavis Staples, the voice with history dripping off of it, spun out some of her more enduring soul songs, including The Band’s ‘The Weight’ which she sang with the Band on The Last Waltz, and one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s favourite songs ‘Why Am I Treated so Bad?’. Her performance lost a bit of mystique when she repeated the same set and intros the second time around, but that said, she’s such a legend she can do damn well what she pleases.

One of the most courageous performances came from the Tibetan Gyuto Monks, whose traditional Buddhist prayers were offered up to be viewed in a musical and performative context (the vocals in particular are stunning). With the tumult in Tibet at the moment, the audience were informed that friends and teachers of the monks were among the monks killed at that time, and goodness knows how stressful that would have been.

Other impressive performances include Master Kong Nay’s take on chapei, a kind of lute. Blind since the age of four, he’s described as the Cambodian Ray Charles, but his freestyling (it’s a shame I can’t understand Khmer), chapei playing and his unconventional phrasing were compelling. His translator’s dancing was very endearing too. The gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks, with their roguish performances and unbelievable rhythms (the interplay between the bass and cimbalom in particular was quite something else) were brilliant too. Toumani Diabate played the West African kora (a twenty-one string lute, which is so sensual, at once highly rhythmic and melodic) and with his Symmetric Orchestra put on another vivid show. The flute playing of Dr. Natesan Ramani and the singing of Manjiri Kelkar, two Indian performers who closed the night on Friday were wonderful; too, if a little bit of an unusual choice as a set-closer, and managed to transform devotional music into something both paradoxically precise and stirring. Kelkar’s voice in particular was haunting and swooped around the expanse of the Bowl. David D’Or, the Israeli singer’s voice was soaring in its range, Brazilian Clube do Balanço’s samba-rock crowd-pleasing (and featured a wonderful rhythm section), and Pedson Kasume, a Ugandan musician/dancer’s workshops immensely fun. Titi Robin, a Frenchman who with his Quintet, explore gypsy and Middle Eastern music in particular, were great when they cut loose, and their virtuouso performing was masterfully executed.

Some of the New Zealand music didn’t disappoint either. While SJD and Phoenix Foundation (the latter though through no fault of their own, more the power company’s fault) had reasonably sloppy performances, they had the benefit of great songs to keep the crowd entertained. A revelation were Auckland six-piece An Emerald City, whose East meets West post-rock was impressively performed, and the band displayed a tightness that belied the complexity of their music. It’s probably reductive to describe their sound as Godspeed meets the sitar, but they are definitely worth checking out in the future. Green Fire Islands, a collaboration between Celtic and Maori musical traditions, probably needed to be a bit more dynamic live, but their sound would work very well recorded.

The general quality of the acts were very high, I rarely felt bored or tired during the glut of music available. While Sharon Jones’ funk may have stolen the show, there was plenty of other sights, sounds and tastes from around the world. It’s certainly a bonus that it’s now a yearly event too, and an enormous hurrah should go to the people of Taranaki who put on such a memorable event.