WOMADelaide 2011 - Day 3 @Botanic Gardens, Adelaide(13/03/11)

Mon 14th Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Sunday was the first of two WOMAD days this review team have been allocated to analyse; to deconstruct the music, frivolities, experiences and general interesting phenomena of this now completely established festival. Given this allocation of work the following words focus wholeheartedly on the music and sounds Sunday produced. For a more detailed discussion on the quirks of WOMAD 2011 and the atmospheric oddities that abounded please read Monday’s dissertation.

Arriving to the background sounds of Francophone Nathalie Natiembe, we made our through the already considerable crowd to the Morton Bay stage. Framed by the majestic Morton Bay fig trees, this was a suitably romantic setting to hear Marshall McGuire explore harp music both ancient and new. Knowing that the audience, interested as they were, was unlikely to be familiar with the intricacies of harp over the past several hundred years, McGuire conversationally provided enough information to bring us to understand the context of each piece, without it becoming overwhelming. Strange as it was for Womad to have shows designated as being seated, it was fitting for this straight-out-of-the-Festival-Centre style of musical art. Beginning with poetic Baroque pieces from the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, McGuire then plucked his way through the seventeenth-century equivalent of a modern-day pop song… only it was about twelve minutes long and sounded more like a lullaby than Lady GaGa. The next set of pieces each illustrated a particular element or state – water, clouds, fire – and sublimely captured the essence of each; encouraged to lie back and rest, the audience was allowed to fully contemplate the evocative nature of pure instrumentation. After conjuring a Spanish dance hall, complete with audience participation, we were brought along on the journey of the harp through time, up to the modern understanding. More strumming made for a sound that almost resembled a very gentle guitar, complemented by the deep notes of a piano. Leaving us with a taste of what he’d laughingly promised he wouldn’t do – play the type of “Bambi music” that too-often is associated with the harp – the experience was over, and the standing ovation dissipated to a set of very different genres.

Just as one expects at a WOMAD the beautiful dulcet tones of McGuire’s harp was followed up almost immediately with the pelvis-thrusting, Caribbean celebrating, calypso grooves of sassy, elder stateswoman Calypso Rose. Looking for the chance to dance and even bounce, one didn’t necessarily feel guaranteed that a 71 year old singer whose biggest hit was back in ye old 1966 was going to bring the party. But her combination of a crack young band, boundless enthusiasm and energy, personality that could kill a dozen a men and a killer batch of songs from the last 40 years to draw open pretty much sold the audience. At least hundreds of festival goers bounced and bounced and bounced to gems like Rum and Coca Cola and the Calypso Rose anthem A Man is A Man. The latter was the highlight as this silver-suit-clad lady stated so passionately ‘any man is a man, and any man can satisfy you, expect a dead man, and some men are dead up here [points to her head] and some men are dead down here [floppily waves her hand around her nether regions]. Funny, edgy and somehow poised this was the calypso injection the major stage needed. Next stop, something very, very different.

And by different I mean an emotional revolution. One of the most powerfully emotional shows I’ve seen WOMAD or otherwise, Archie Roach delivered a show that bared his terrific, loving, gentle and articulate soul to a crowd that swelled across the hour he played for. It was almost as if people were talking around WOMAD about how special this was potentially going to be and Stage 3 (the best sounding stage in the grounds) started sparse and overflowed with a crowd mostly suffering from adulation overload. And why was it special? It was Archie with his son Amos and his nephew AND an empty chair for the matriarch of so many individuals’ lives, the guiding light for many a lost soul and one of Australia’s most talented Indigenous songwriters, Archie’s wife, Ruby Hunter. She passed away mid last year and left a hole in these men’s life that in Archie’s case is only just starting to fill. He left that seat empty for the gig (and by extension left me crying for most of it) as he cycled through a selection of Ruby’s songs both young and old, a couple of classics of his own like Charcoal Lane and Weeping In The Forest and a new song he’d only just written as he was getting back on the artistic wagon. The heart and love in this man permeated throughout the gig, with Ruby’s overt absence being emotionally wrecking even to those who had never experienced her presence. Amazingly, he managed to only came close to tears right at the beginning and it is a testament to the willpower of this man who’ has kicked booze and overcome his inherited youth being stolen for him that he didn’t break down. He did it for Ruby and he did it for us. And for those that knew of Archie’s work, this was special. His appreciation for nature, his family, his songs and his history can only be cultivated in a man with a past as troubled as his, recent and age-old. Although some newcomers thought he spoke too much between songs, for me it revealed intricacies and background I didn’t know and it meant that the man and his life was performing for us as much as his music. This was an emotionally multi-dimensional show I’ll never forget. We saw him later in Artists in Conversation and the theme was continued. A damaged man whose powerful muse is beginning to rescue him from great personal trauma. It wasn’t particularly WOMAD; it was something far more special.

From Calypso to harrowing soul-baring humanity to – Os Mutantes?? Well I was unbelievably excited to see this kaleadioscopic, careening, psychedelic, Brazilian freak-out showcase for months before arriving on Botanic Park’s hallowed turf, but I was somewhat down-prepared by Archie Roach. I was a bit of an emotional head case after going through that and I was hoping, if not hopeful that they’d get me out of the rut. They took their time and they are a far different beast now than their seminal 60’s output would suggest but they took the adoring crowd to a place of retarded, yet technically wizardistic fun-town. I was a little disappointed that the psychedelic tinges were swapped, or at least morphed into an arena-rock, cock rock feeling showcase but when you have the guitar playing abilities of Sergio Diaz (who the hell plays intricate jazz-fusion solos on one knee gallivanting across the stage? This was no John McLaughlin) and the appearance of a bunch of brilliantly dressed freaknicks, sing in melodic Portugese and have a band filled to the brim with talent, you don’t have to be ‘as you were’. They plowed through a unique mix of elaborate pop three-minuters, career spanning medleys, power ballads, soaring choruses, arena jazz workouts and mini-jams without stopping for a second. They interacted with the crowd nicely, with their odd pronunciations of ‘Adelaydee’ and adoring recognition of the fun that was had. I thought it would be different, more original-sounding Mutantes, but in a way it was traditional. It sped from place-to-place, genre-to-genre, headspace-to-headspace with completely controlled ease. This was a great pick from the WOMAD organisers. An awesome mix of the old and the modern the west and rest.

After breaking for an exploration of world food and drink (in reality a lentil pie and cider) we were herded to Joanna Newsom by enthusiastic and dedicated friends eager to set up camp and secure a space for optimum view and sound of this 29-year-old harpist who has captured the hearts of many over her rapid rise to the spotlight. The crowd, a typically-Womadesque mix of young and not-so-young, was decorous and reserved, patiently waiting for the Sunday headline to make her entrance. When she did so, flanked by a small orchestra of musicians, she was everything her music suggested she would be: petite, cute, and generally wholesome. Making an unmemorable commentary to the crowd, she began on the piano, with little backing from her band, and let her voice be the focus. Alternating between piano and harp throughout, Newsom’s musical talent and vocal abilities were clear, and the crowd responded with enthusiasm. Perhaps as a result of the calibre of the other artists we’d already fitted in before her, however, Joanna failed to capture our attention. Though demonstrating excellent voice control – particularly difficult when playing the harp – her changes in tempo and pitch were unengaging and seemed unconnected to the overall picture. Her breathy prepubescent voice was best served when she let it go, becoming wilder and deeper and more fulfilling. With hit after hit being served on a silver plate, the audience was split into two camps: those casual listeners who were satisfied with the big numbers, and those more interested fans who would have preferred a non-Womad show where she was able to more fully explore her range and work.

I knew I wanted to see Luka Bloom and I expected to quite enjoy his work, but we were pleasantly surprised to be delivered a charming and charismatic performance spanning nearly 20 songs and over an hour and a half. His reputation is solid and many of his songs are considered some of the better examples of post Dylan and Springsteen singer songwriter but that doesn’t paint all the picture. His charm and verve made the show at the little zoo stage intimate (despite attracting a large crowd). His sense of humour was plaintively obvious when he continued to use the substitute and wholly Irish word “feck”, including in an aside to Afro Celt Sound System, when he screamed off-mike that they should “shut the feck up”. He told the crowd that he’d finally “made it to the world” by playing WOMAD. He endearingly told us that he’d been used to playing in Norwood and at The Gov which shows that he cared about this little old place. He got us all on side and was duly rewarded with a crowd that he described as ‘bloody awesomely chilled out’. He proceeded to take full advantage of said crowd by indulging in the ‘love angle’ and playing many more of his beautifully simple, often frenetically strummed little paeans to love and loss. It wasn’t exclusively relaxed though. He got political with Where Is My Tribe? and managed to get wholly committed if hushed sing-a-longs to at least three of his better known numbers. He played an encore of 4 songs and introduced the final one by saying “I don’t know how this song came into my head, but it did, so I’ll play it”. What followed was a spine-tingling version of U2’s 1984 gem Bad. The refrain and then chorus of I’m Wide Awake was delivered with an honesty that would make Bono piss his pants if he heard it right now and it capped off the hidden gem of WOMAD 2011 and a gig that rose as it went along and grew into the best a singer-songwriter can provide. Great tunes, delivered with honesty, accompanied with a sense of humour, all within a self-effacing atmosphere of joint-joy.

So it’s getting late, well late if you were at WOMAD all day and the last show we were to see was Sydney based new-Jazz trio The Necks. They are starting to be famed for their hour or more long single crescendo based pieces and that’s exactly what WOMAD got. Beginning with hushed-cymbal crashing work, slowly the dynamic rose, as it began to include repeated, droning piano ‘hitting’ (I say hitting as chords were sometimes absent and melody not a great concern of this band) and double bass played with punctuating power either with bow or through strum or pick. All this moved with mini-changes that create an almost ‘trance’ like experience. It’s not noise rock or even noise jazz as it has a highly structured way of moving from movement to movement. The overall effect is undulating washes of sound that rise and then drop slightly and slowly, almost Eno-esque in the way it treats an extended piece as wave pattern with its own attractive shape and from. They were made for the late night atmosphere and didn’t go out with a crash or boom, even though they crescendoed to quite the higher place. They made sure that everyone left only after being brought back down to earth as they spent the last 4 minutes moving the music and our minds down to a level that made it easier to go home. Their mastery of tension over one hour-long piece was their art. And they proved themselves artists.

So it’s off to WOMAD 2011 Monday this time. A different day I expect. But this day was a treasure. We got lucky with our decision making (for the most part) and were rewarded for making the effort to go to this annual event.