Poppy and Oscar Puschmann at Womad in New Plymouth enjoying their first music festival experience. Photo / Karl Puschmann
Poppy and Oscar Puschmann at Womad in New Plymouth enjoying their first music festival experience. Photo / Karl Puschmann
Review by Karl Puschmann
Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
Karl Puschmann took his kids to Womad, and he thinks you should too.
A woman gently touched my arm and when I turned to look at her she smiled warmly and gazed deep into my soul. Making herself heard over the pumping disco-house music of DJ Pixie Lane she confidently stated: “You are growing amazing humans.”
“We’re trying,” I replied, grateful for the reassurance, even if my frazzled expression didn’t convey it in the moment. “We’re trying.”
It had been a long day. And while the crowd of ravers at this outdoor dance party were just beginning to find their groove, my 7-year-old son Oscar was starting to slump over on my shoulders and my 10-year-old daughter Poppy looked tuckered out.
To be fair, the clock had just struck 10.30pm, which is a couple of hours past their usual bedtime, and we’d been in the brilliant heat of the sun all afternoon, so of course they were knackered. But, on the other more unfair hand, it was also only day one of Womad.
These two, I thought, will need to harden up if they hope to survive all three days of their first music festival.
The decision to take the kids to Womad had been made while my wife and I were partying at a smaller, one-day music festival a few weeks earlier. We’d offloaded the kids for the night and were having so much fun we decided we needed to start going to music festivals again at once.
Then one of us remembered Womad was coming up and the other said we should definitely go. Then one of us remembered that we had kids and the other said maybe we should just take them with us. And because by this stage we were in full-on music festival party mode, it was agreed that was exactly what we would do.
Which is how our little family of four came to be sitting on the bank at New Plymouth’s stunning Bowl of Brooklands natural amphitheatre watching Aotearoa’s alt-rockers The Veils weird out the stage with the classical string act NZTrio on a wonderfully pleasant Friday evening.
None of us had ever been to Womad before. We’d of course heard it was a wonderful festival for families, and this would prove to be entirely accurate. We instantly found the atmosphere laid back and welcoming. Everyone was chill. Bad vibes weren’t allowed in and during the three days, we didn’t witness any boganic, lairy or violent behaviour.
The family vibe even extended to the talent. “This is the first time my daughter’s seen me perform,” Veils frontman Finn Andrews smiled. “So this one’s for her,” he said, launching into a lovely ballad as the screen behind him changed to a broadcast from a roving cameraman who’d found the singer’s toddler dancing happily on the grass.
Finn Andrews performs during The Veils set at Womad. Photo / Joaco Dibbern
It was a terrific way to open Womad and when it was over we went in search of food. I was glad the festival ran for three days because there was a dazzling array of authentic international cuisine to try and we munched our way through not nearly enough of it.
As expected, the acts were all mind-altering and amazing for us and our kids. We’d hoped their musical horizons would be greatly expanded and they were. As well as the sensory overload of just being at a music festival with all the sights, sounds and people for the first time, they were both exposed to music and sounds they’d never heard before.
There was the transcendental mysticism of Indian maestros Satish Vyas and U Rajesh, the rowdy Scottish folk of Talisk, the Latina flair and virtuosity of Cuba’s Ana Carla Maza who rocked the hell out of her cello in previously unimaginable ways, the Aotearoa funk of Black Comet, the folktronica of Australia’s Amaru Tribe, the world music/electronic journey that British muso Nitin Sawhney took us on and the exceptional live electro-pop and accompanying acid freak-out visuals of former Moloko-frontwoman Róisín Murphy. Minds, it’s fair to say, were blown.
Ana Carla Masa performs for the crowd in New Plymouth. Photo / Federico Pagola
If none of those acts are familiar, well, they weren’t to us either. Womad is about discovery. Unlike other music festivals that almost make you a slave to your timetable, here we simply wandered around and plonked ourselves down in front of any stage where the music appealed. It was such a relaxed way of doing things and we were never disappointed.
Even though there were 12,000 people there, on day two we bumped into some old friends. Like us, they were also introducing their two kids to music festivals by bringing them to Womad. All four kids were stoked to be reunited so we found a patch of grass in front of the main stage, made an HQ and let the kids run wild and free in our general area.
It’s hard to imagine doing that at any other festival but here it just felt right. It’s so green and peaceful and that word that always seems to come up when people talk about Womad: magical. The kids absolutely loved it, as did we.
We were all exhausted but happy. And as we were driving out of New Plymouth the next day to start the trek back home they made us promise to take them again next year.
We did, but it was completely unnecessary. We’d already marked the dates in the calendar.
