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About 1km away from the unconfined mess and noise of FutureMusic 2010, the rather more quaint tradition of WOMAdelaide stretched into an anniversary-observing fourth day at Botanic Park. A wintery afternoon of cool temperatures and the constant threat – if not reality – of heavy rainfall gave the event’s final hours an oddly English quality, as though the festival had sprung up near its founder Peter Gabriel’s home studios in Box Wiltshire. There were echoes too of another festival, one a little more akin to Futuremusic for its rowdiness and occasional chaos, but a definite ancestor of WOMAD in terms of mood and patrons – Woodstock. The echoes of that epochal week in 1969 were given added legitimacy this year by the presence of Ravi Shankar, the now 90-year-old Indian sitarist who George Harrison once declared “the godfather of world music”. Gazing out over a main stage crowd that he and his daughter Anoushka would hold spellbound for 90 minutes, Shankar declared “this reminds me of a mini-Woodstock”. If the organisers haven’t yet considered the possibility of printing that little nugget onto the event program for 2011, they should have.

Shankar’s performance would be the crowning moment of the day and perhaps the week, but there was much more to beguile the patient listener across the final sessions of the festival. In early-afternoon a large and hip-shaking assembly took place for the guitar pop with a twist of Tim Finn, the senior voice of Split Enz and the more iconoclastic Lennon to his younger brother Neil’s melodically faultless McCartney. In his only set of the event, Finn strummed and swayed through a generous cross-section of his varied career, earning the biggest cheers for Enz standards such as Dirty Creature and I Hope I Never. He pulled it all together at the end by choosing a song popularised by “Neil’s band” Crowded House, and few could blame him for the raucous rendition of Weather With You as the clouds swirled ominously overhead.

The short journey from stage two to one offered up a glimpse of the second performance by Fyah Walk, the Australian collective that has attempted to create a more Antipodean reggae tradition than that otherwise enjoyed by the music lovers (and Rastafari followers) of the world. They are certainly capable of a joyful noise, but its resemblance to the work of innumerable Jamaican reggae purveyors leaves the overwhelming impression of white guys trying to make it swing. That said, few in the crowd appeared to mind, and after this festival there will be a corner of the Botanic Park field that will remain forever Byron (Bay).

Back where Finn had packed up, the bold strokes of Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were prompting plenty of enthusiastic response. Composed largely of the sons of noted African-American jazz exponent Phil Cohran, the ensemble melds a varied palette of influences with an aggressive, hip-hop riffing attitude – one that has caught the attention of Blur, among others. Occasionally the rapping and the exhorting between tunes can get a little tiresome, but there is little doubt about the powers of the group when their mouths are applied to their instruments, eliciting a powerful sound that left this Memphis Horns fan confident the future of brass is in good and proper hands.

There would be another demonstration of the power of the collective when Xavier Rudd took to the stage. Perenially known for his capacity to extract marvellously deep and varied sonic textures entirely under his own steam, Rudd has more recently paired up with the South African duo of Toto Molontoa (bass) and Andile Nquebezelo (percussion). The result is an even more full-blooded sound, almost to the level of stadium folk rock for hippies (that is if hippies ever ventured into stadium shows). Rudd’s own message of peace, love and indigenous solidarity is exemplified by the presence of the Aboriginal and South African flags either side of his stage, and at WOMAD he was certainly preaching to the converted.

Another trio of talents was shortly to appear on the more intimate Zoo Stage, and space was at a premium as the compere advised with a typically soothing tone that Djan Djan’s would be a “sit-down” performance. Comprising Australia bluesman Jeff Lang, Mali’s Grammy-winning kora player Mamadou Diabate and the accomplished tablist Bobby Singh, Djan Djan appear an attempt to create music that transcends boundaries of both nation and genre. It does not always work, occasionally sounding a little like three solo albums played simultaneously, but at other times the combination of elements produces moments of real beauty and no little fun. Singh’s tabla anchored the rhythms in a subcontinental entree of what would await when Shankar and friends took to the main stage around sunset.

Initially, court was held by Anoushka alone, the 28-year-old having built up a quite deep and accomplished back catalogue of her own after a lifetime spent at the feet of the sitar’s undisputed master. Soon though she was introducing her father and the rest of their ensemble, for a three song journey to lands likely to have been uncharted by many in the audience. The sitar’s overpowering sense of place can conjure up powerful images of India, and its lilting rhythms have the effect of tickling the ears in a pleasant and even narcotic manner. Shankar’s final piece was a varied raga that meandered on for 45 wandering minutes, the aural equivalent of a leisurely but fascinating river journey down the Ganges, with a few tangential stops along the way whenever Shankar chose to divert from the initial pathway.

Shankar’s stamina at 90 was marvelled at by more than a few of those watching, it it is to be hoped that WOMAD itself can last for somewhere near as long as the man who headlined it in 2010. As observed by one patron who sidled in for Shankar after evading the throng at FutureMusic: “This is how a festival should be”.

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