WOMAD Earth Station

Tue 25th Oct, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Over the weekend Belair National Park’s furry creatures were greeted by the sounds of guitars, strings, the buzz of great minds and the dulcet tones of Cate Blanchett. Produced by the same team behind WOMADelaide, the inaugural WOMAD EarthStation kicked on for two days and three nights in the fittingly leafy surrounds. The planet-focused festival of music and ideas is smaller than its big cousin WOMAD, but one feather in its cap is that the event offers on-site camping just a short stroll from the main area. Other feathers in its cap are its goody bag of attractions and its family-friendly atmosphere (no off-their face miscreants near the picnicking children please).

After gratifying their boy or girl-crushes on Cate Blanchett, festival goers could take a guided bush walk before returning to picnic and enjoy a cider while chilling to a string quartet. The Market provided food stalls, eco information and stalls selling recycled and eco products. The organic coffee stall was the winner in my books, chai-loading and caffeinating me up for the long day ahead.

Planet Talks throughout the weekend offered up academics, scientists and thinkers addressing sustainability and engaging in environment-focused political and business discourse. Where else can you listen to the likes of Al Gore’s chief of staff Roy Neel, actress and joint STC Director Cate Blanchett, and geologist Stephen Pekar all in one location? Populate or Perish saw a three-way debate between Paul Gilding, Dr Graham Turner and Fiona Heinrichs discussing sustainability in the light of population growth and consumption, while Greening in the Community: Case Studies showed people in the community getting on with it and changing our behaviour in relation to the environment. The latter provided case studies from the Sydney Theatre Company (Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton) and Tim Jarvis’s exemplary notion of Do Tank (as opposed to the widespread contagion of fruitless ‘think tanks’).

Diverse musical acts tickled the eardrums and called out the dancing vibe in many good folk. The Kronos Quartet was one of the weekend’s highlight with their innovative classical-meets-deep-space performance. The US string quartet do creativity and innovation like cows go ‘moo’. Wu Man joined the quartet on stage with her skill on the Chinese instrument, the Pipa. Together, they blew the minds and ears of the languid crowd. Other notable performances were Zakir Hussain and Emma Donovan. Toumani Diabate from Mali may have cancelled his much-anticipated kora performances, but punters picnicked on. Konono No 1 really stirred up a party on the Sunday afternoon; a crazed dance floor crowding barefoot on the grass below the exuberant Congo drummers on the Internode stage. Backbones bent further than humanly possible, hips hula-hooped their way to kingdom come and enough energy was generated to power a small ice cream stand in the joyous fracas. Paris Wells joined the weekend dance party on the Kaka Stage, adding some disco soul to the proceedings and calling on the audience to join in a little ‘skanking’.

The gem performance of my weekend was The Tallest Man on Earth at the tail end of the festival. Drawing inevitable comparisons to the song writing of Bob Dylan, the Swedish song-smith’s throaty warble commanded listeners throughout his folk-acoustic-rock set. Despite not being above average stature, his stage presence begged to differ. At times sitting mid-riff or bolting to the edge of stage, the set lived up to his moniker of The Tallest man on Earth and engulfed the audience, powered by the clean energy of a lone man and his guitar.