Last weekend Lauren and I headed to Adelaide to attend Womadelaide. It is a music festival featuring musicians and artists from around the world. We had a 2 day and 3 night pass. But because temperatures were ranging between 36-39 degrees during the day we did not attend during the day only the nights.
The hot weather also meant we could not explore the city of Adelaide. We were able to do a bit on Monday as Womadelaide had finished. We went to the beach on Monday afternoon to cool down and walked around the busy strip of Rundle Mall on Monday night. The one thing I will say about Adelaide is that the food I had was great. We ate out 3 times and I was satisfied with the quality and taste all 3 times.
What is Womadelaide ?
The World of Music, Arts & Dance (WOMAD + Adelaide = WOMADelaide).
WOMADelaide is a three-day day music, arts and dance festival held in Adelaide’s Botanic Park.
Its aim is to create a friendly ambience and message of cultural discovery and understanding through music.
Here is my summary of the music artists we saw:
Friday March 7, 2008
The John Butler Trio (Australia)
The John Butler Trio features John Butler on guitar, Shannon Birchall on bass and Michael Barker on drums. It’s a combination of rock, folk/roots and blues. The John Butler Trio put on a great live show, but I was not wowed by them.
Club de Balanco (Brazil) – is a nine member band, mixing jazz, rock and soul with an irresistible samba beat. We only listed to about 20mins but again I was not impressed or I didn’t feel I was listening to something new or exciting.
Soul Jazz Sound System (UK) – features 2 DJs, DJs Pete Reilly and Stuart Baker with MC Oxman. The DJ’s play all types of dance music - hip-hop, reggae etc. with MC Oxman singing along or MCing. We only saw about 20mins of this act and again I was not impressed.
Mavis Staples (USA)
Mavis is a soul and gospel legend, originally singing with her family in the group The Staples Singers from the early 50’s as child in churches to touring with her father and sisters as the Staple Singers in the 60’s and 70’s. Her career has spanned 40 years and from the early 1970’s has been releasing solo albums.
She sang some classic soul/rock songs along with her own songs. She had a good band and backup singers, one of which is her older sister. But again I felt it was standard soul/motown music and was not impressed.
Saturday March 8, 2008
Sarah Blasko (Australia)
She sings songs accompanied with music that is subdued yet powerful. She tends to be accompanied by a piano or a chamber ensemble including double bass, cello, violin, french horn, flute, piano and percussion. Her music is low-key, the type of music you listen to on a quite Sunday afternoon with a group of friends while eating cheese and drinking wine. It’s sombre and about real-life.
She is a very good singer but not my cup of tea.
Cesaria Evora Band (Cape Verde)
Cesaria Evora nicknamed the barefoot diva, for performing in bare feet in support of the disadvantaged women and children of her country, Cesária Évora is a truly legendary singer. Her soulful, evocative songs are in a style known as morna - sung in Creole Portuguese and related to Portuguese fado and Brazilian modinha. Since recording her first hit album in 1988, Evora has had a stellar international performing career.
Unfortunately Cesaria suffered a minor stroke earlier in the week and she was not able to perform. But her band was already in Adelaide, they decided to play two instrumental performances on her behalf.
Her 10-piece band, which were fronted by two men playing a Clarinet and a Violin were fantastic. The music makes you want to get up and dance. It makes you feel happy, want to smile and move your body.
This was the first act or group that I really enjoyed and it got better as the night went on.
Nicodemus (USA)
New York City DJ Nickodemus, is famed for founding the turntables on the Hudson parties, has a unique hip hop flavour, incorporating breaky beats and brisk grooves with live congas and bongos. His Endangered Species album embraces World, folk, funk, jazz, hip hop and dance music, all laced with messages of peace and love.
Nicodemus plays dance music from all around the world. We listened to him for over 1 hour while lying on grass on a towel. The music is wonderful, incorporating dance music from USA, UK, India and the Middle East. As we lied on the ground listening, we could feel our personal space decrease as more and more people (young adults) kept coming over to listen and dance to the beats being created by Nicodemus.
It was a surreal experience listening to such fun dance music, especially the Middle Eastern music. It was truly a once in a life time experience. But after an hour we decided to move on and listen to the Idan Raichel Project.
Since emerging in 2002, this eclectic ensemble has offered a powerful message of love and tolerance within its blend of Ethiopian and Middle Eastern musical influences. Keyboardist/composer Idan Raichel recorded with more than 70 singers and musicians, but performs with a seven-piece band and singers from Ethiopia, South America, South Africa and different parts of Israel.
When I first started listening to this group I while lying down on the grass. And as I was listening, I started feeling more vibrant in my energy. It was about 11:15pm and I was stating to get tired, but after about 30mins of listening I was up and looking at the band and watching the singers and feeling very good about myself. Although I could not understand the language, the music and the way the singers sung, moved and danced you could not help feeling uplifted and happy in a subdued reflecting way. The music resonated through your body, uplifting you.
It is probably the best live performance I have ever seen. That’s saying something for a performance not in English.
At the end of this night I felt I experienced some truly wonderful and uplifting music.
All-Star Gala (Various Artists)
We were about 10mins late and were able to sneak into the side near the front. Up on stage were various people and groups. One of the groups was the Joji Hirota trio, which is a percussion band using traditional drums from Japan. There is a woman in the group and she was having fun. She was all smiles and at one time lost one of her drum sticks and had to quickly retrieve it from the ground.
We also saw another percussion group from Africa – Farfina. They were quite spectacular as well.
Another group that played during the performance was the Victor Valdes and the Real Mexican Mariachi; a combination of Mexican and Australian musicians. Another group which got the crowd jumping and clapping their hands.
At the end all the groups and musicians came on stage and sang a song together all playing the same music with a variety of instruments. Quite a feat to pull off, but it was great.
As everyone left the stage, Farina and Joji Hiroato trio stayed on the stage and performed an impromptu set together. The heart pounding Japanese drums and the fast paced African drums together sounded magnificent and had the whole crowd clapping and jumping with adrenalin.
Black Grace (New Zealand)
Black Grace is New Zealand's leading contemporary dance company. The robust athleticism of Neil Ieremia's dynamic choreographic vision has won wide acclaim in North America, Mexico and Japan.
For a change of pace we decided to watch a dance program, which got rave reviews the night before. The dance featured is based on the Samoan principles of its choreographer Neil Ieremia. He uses his past and the past of his people and the country of New Zealand to create exciting and memorable dance sequences. It was most enjoyable and I am glad I saw it.
Singer Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings (USA)
Singer Sharon Jones has earned the title of America's Queen of Soul since collaborating in the late-1990s with Bosco Mann and the Dap-Kings - star-studded house band of the Daptone Records label and icons of New York's Deep Funk scene.
The performance was full of energy by singer Sharon Jones and groovy music of the Dap-Kings. Sharon can sing and dance, thanks to her African and Native American heritage. Yet despite the quality of the music performed by the Dap-Kings and the upbeat nature of the music and singer Jones; I was not satisfied or felt fulfilled as with other performance that night or from Saturday night.
Wrapup
Despite the hot weather, which stopped us from attending the day-time shows, I am happy I went to Womadelaide and had a good time. I wish I could have caught more acts but maybe it was a good thing as I rested during the day-time which made the journey to Adelaide feel very relaxing.
Womadeliade is a very well run festival with a great assortment of music. It was a festival that was attended by a range of people. Families with infant children to families with teenagers to young adults like Lauren and me to older folks from the 40-70 range. There was also a range of tasty gourmet foods from all around the world that could be consumed from 12pm to 12am.
Music is a universal language; the only language the human race has that can transcend language and all the other differences we have as humans - race, religion and gender. Music’s ability to communicate happiness or sadness is a very powerful tool in bringing people together regardless of who they are.
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