Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth
March 14-16 | Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

WOMAD 2007 is one of the musical highlights of my life. With damn exhilarating and intoxicating acts like Mariza and Salif Keita, I will remember it fondly forever. After a roadtrip scored with discerning mixtapes courtesy of Lumiere’s Music Editor, Beirut were first up in 2008. I quite liked them, particularly ‘My Life’ (introduced as ‘My Wife’ the next night) with its striking horns counterpoint, but I don’t believe the hype. While the Bowl of Brooklands didn’t feature transfixing, sensual magic like The Gotan Project this year, Afro-Peruvian chanteuse Susana Baca and dynamic gypsy rogues Taraf de Haidouks impressed. (The flags, normally evocative of hope and emancipation, were a bit garish.)

The Gyuto Monks’ soulful, plangent chanting was particularly moving given the disgraceful oppression China’s regime is current subjecting their Tibetan friends, teachers and countrymen to. The monks German translator said 110 Tibetan monks have recently been murdered by the Chinese occupiers. When I interviewed the African film director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, he cited Toumani Diabate as his number one inspiration. The Malian master lived up to his rep, delivering astonishing music on the kora, a 21-string African harp. The latest of 71 generations of kora players, Diabate’s music has the force of thousands of years of history. At the Chimney Stage (a welcome addition, encouraging intimate performances), Diabate delivered a charismatic taki about the cultural richness of Africa. Like a muezzin bringing a mosque to prayer, Diabate captivated the audience. It was impossible not to be moved by love song ‘Jarabe’.

The down-to-earth Phoenix Foundation also worked well at the Chimney. “If being as successful as The Feelers means making music like them, I’d rather be dead. As a musician that is the fucking arsehole of the world,” frontman- vocalist Sam Scott told me recently. The Phoenix, like WOMAD, is the opposite of The Feelers’ pap. The inimitable Luka Buda’s ‘Slumber Party’, co-written with his partner Sarah-Jane Parton, floats dreamily through time and space, engaging romantic difficulty brilliantly. The Happy Endings’ standout’s lovely opener “There lies a girl/with eyes of pearl” is surpassed by swooning “If we had waited for the morning/babe we’d be both fine/But it seems the morning never comes/In this world.” I’d like to see the Phoenix do more such Queenish vocal harmonies. It was also choice to hear my favourite Phoenix track, ‘All in An Afternoon’: “As the evening falls, and you find a moment’s pause, what a silly boy you have been.” Buda’s beaming lyric “We could be unemployed together”, from Eagle vs Shark, was another rather inspired moment.

Mavis Staples, the First Lady of Soul, was great on Friday. Mavis not only sings, she testifies. Supported by three backing singers, she fired up the crowd with civil rights freedom songs from the 60s and 70s. Showcasing why she’s a legend, Mavis was gutsy, pure and inspirational. She gracefully belted out terrific tracks including ‘Eyes on the Prize’, ‘Down in Mississippi’ and ‘The Weight’ (from Scorsese’s The Last Waltz). The Staples Singers used to sing before Martin Luther King’s speeches. Mavis put a shiver up my spine singing (and explaining) Dr King’s favourite ‘Why Am I Treated So Bad’ and connecting it to Obama’s campaign. With Mavis’ blistering version of ‘Respect Yourself’, R E S P E C T, who could disagree? These classic songs resonated anew. It was disappointing that Mavis played the same set, bar one song, Saturday night (Her performance was significantly lesser, due to food poisoning). I missed hearing new songs like ‘My Own Eyes’ and staples like ‘Hard Times’ and ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’.

Sharon Jones, another visceral soul sista, and her Dap Kings went off. They scorched onto the stage with so much style, getting the audience jumping. Shimmying in the shadows of Motown, Sharon owned the stage: “I ain’t nobody’s baby, I ain’t nobody’s fool.” She was singing many lines of heartache and heartbreak (“Tell me that you love me”, “How do I let this good man down?”, “Answer me sweet Jesus”.) But Sharon, her exciting, intuitive Dap Kings (three guitars, three horns, one drummer) and the audience were having a blissful time as disco’s ironic smirk was shattered. It’s been killer seeing Supergroove play recently, but their funk ain’t nuthin’ compared to this. The connection with Sharon’s fellow Georgian James Brown was clear, not least in their cover of ‘What Do I Have To Do To Prove My Love To You?’

Nick Bollinger helmed engaging interviews at the Pinetum, eliciting intriguing yarns from Sharon and the Dap Kings lead guitarist-producer Gabriel Roth. Roth persuasively rhapsodised vinyl. He was a dab hand with the one-liners: “So what if you’ve got 98,000 songs on your watch…you can’t roll a joint on an MP3.” Sharon had amusing stories about working with Lou Reed on collaborations such as a ‘Sweet Jane’ cover. “The magnificent Sharon Jones took me to the mountaintop,” Lou once enthused before the duo fell out. Unfortunately, we had to leave New Plymouth before Sharon’s Sunday night cover of Woody Guthrie’s mighty ‘This Land is Your Land’.

Taha Maori was out in force with Whangara Mai Tawhiti kapa haka group. The manager of Russia’s Terem Quartet was one enthusiast: “We must bring them to Russia. I have never seen so many good looking men on a stage in my life”. The affable Kora brothers also put on an energetic show. The Koras, not self-appointed boor Tame Iti, should be Kings of Tuhoe. Props should go to DJ Nickodemus, a hardworking, inventive digger who closed Saturday night classily (playing records including Salif Keita). I’m still struggling to think of a better live music venue than Brooklands Park. Is this Aotearoa’s New Zealand’s premier music festival?