Womad
The Edge
Reviewed by Graham Reid
Call it deep immersion if you will, but the Womad festival is a good opportunity to brush up on your French, if nothing else. However Womad is plenty of else.
This rainbow-coloured weekend of music - and food - from around the planet is where Africans get you dancing, Indians get you thinking and the common language seems to be in the hands of percussion players. Those athletic Drummers of Burundi speak volumes - and loudly too.
Womad can be enriching (although some believe it is also somehow morally ennobling) and occasionally an ethnologist's delight, as in Richard Nunns and Hirini Melbourne's respectful, informative, gently humoured demonstration of traditional Maori instruments before a standing-room-only crowd.
But mostly it's entertaining, because on display is, in most cases, the pop music of countries as diverse as Cuba and Senegal, Jamaica and Zimbabwe.
In a weekend of highlights Israeli violinist/oud player Yair Dalal's two performances - the mysterious, elegant programme with his percussionist, and with the Al Ol Ensemble in a transcendental set before a hushed capacity crowd - was a standout.
And Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin, with a terrific jazz trio, showed he was the master of ska-jazz. On his dub reggae dismantling of Congoman the beaming Ranglin made the difficult look effortless. (Rock guitarists tend to do the opposite.)
Senegalese singer Baaba Maal's nail-hard vocals, swirling dancing, and sweat-drenched delivery had his SRO crowds rapturous and Shiv Kumar Sharma offered a breathtaking journey on the 100-stringed santoor, as did Tibetan singer Yungchen Lhamo, who came on stage with nothing but a voice and almost holy presence.
Good things happen when cultures collide: Lo'Jo from France with their romantic, dramatic music drew from many traditions - Francophone Africa, Spanish and Arabic among them - and delivered with rare passion, weird hand gestures and wild dancing.
Te Vaka deservedly pulled one of the biggest crowds of the weekend with their amalgam of pop and Pacifica. (Why isn't Papa E a hit single?)
New Zealand acts were well attended even when up against exotic internationals. Perhaps we have become exotic to ourselves? If so, it bodes well for Pacifika next weekend.
Bill Sevesi with ukelele guest Sione 'Aleki played a typically good-natured set, Hori Chapman and Ahurangi brought sunshine Hokianga reggae to the city and Che Fu delivered a stunner on Friday night, more focused than his Big Day Out appearance and with the virtue of better sound.
Womad's production values were excellent, the exception being the 25-minute wait while Indian tabla player Trilok Gurtu and band sound checked while the patient, paying audience - which had something else to do, like see Hungarian folk singer Marta Sebestyen - was treated with customary discourtesy. A simple explanation would have been well received - and to the crews' credit the few further delays over the weekend were explained. As they should be.
Less high-profile acts offered some major discoveries:
Christchurch outfit Svelte - described in the programme as a blend of smoky jazz, hip-hop and traditional Maori song - played an exhilarating set of funk waiata, and Australians Karma County delivered up hard-edge country rock straight out of Texas which, in the old days, would have filled the Gluepot.
Cubans Las Perlas del Son got hips shaking and Argentinian bandoneon player Cesar Stroscio had couples up for close dancing tango-style.
Those who attended the inaugural Womad two years ago in Western Springs Park expressed trepidation this time that it was to be held on the dull slab of Aotea Square and ancillary venues in the Town Hall and Aotea Centre.
Yet over the weekend the site won out: it is convenient, has good bars and toilets, the stage facing the Aotea Centre created an amphitheatre effect (something permanent and let's lose that lousy sculpture, huh?) and each area had a different ambience. It was also nice to see Aotea Square taken over by colourful people and flags of no nation. (Let Apec take care of nationalism.)
Womad was also intelligently programmed: miss someone today, you could see them tomorrow.
Not everything was successful: Teremoana Rapley's ambitious multimedia presentation failed to make an emotional connection, Ireland's Kila sounded little different from a dozen other similar bands (a few of them local) and the African Gypsies' Friday-night set was uneven. Before former Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera joined them they took a couple of numbers to hit their stride with guest Oliver Mtukudzi (who earlier played a superb SRO set in the concert chamber), but then trod water as the technically brilliant Manzanera took off on an extended space rock voyage. They could have been any progrock band from Hamburg.
No matter, you could always walk away because there was a lot else to see.
And in a weekend mercifully free of irony, it was amusing this vibrant, enjoyable festival should take place on a flat piece of concrete before a banner which read Les Miserables.
Not us.
Caption: Zimbabwean singer Oliver Mtukudzi bringing the musical magic of his homeland to Womad.
