WOMADelaide @ Botanic Park, Adelaide 9/3/2024
2024 WOMADelaide is shaping up to be the “hottest” festival on earth with close to or exceeding one hundred degrees Fahrenheit for all four days and some of the hottest acts you will ever see. Saturday was one of my favourite days at the Festival ever and I have gone to them for over twenty years.
As I walk through the WOMADelaide gates and head straight for Stage 6 where Andrew Ford is presenting his ABC Radio “The Music Show” as he has been doing for many years. The radio show has guest performers from this year’s festival presenting a few of their songs and talking about their craft. I was able to see Marta Pereira da Costa from Lisbon Portugal who gave up civil engineering to take up a career as a Fado guitarist. Marta is an excellent guitarist and she played two great pieces. I saw her whole set the previous night and she was outstanding.
In the first hour of the show, I also got to see The Good Ones from Rwanda and Katanga Junior from Tanzania and now Alice Springs. The Good Ones used simple percussion, acoustic guitar and haunting melodies to great effect. Katanga Junior plays acoustic folk reggae to hip hop and was most impressive. For the whole of the second hour, I was treated to two Irish living legends, singer-songwriter Lisa O’Neill and concertina master Cormac Begley who were performing together later in the day as well.
During this set and later in the day Lisa and Cormac told us of their inspirations and how their heritage has made them who they are musically today. They played a wonderful cover of Bob Dylan called All the Tired Horses and this cover was used in the TV show Peaky Blinders. Cormac did a wonderful instrumental of three pieces on his concertina which was followed by Lisa doing a song called When Cash was King which bemoaned the loss of cash in our society. Seeing the radio show was an excellent start to the day.
The first act I saw on the main stage today was the Middle Eastern psych-rock collective called Al-Qasar. They are an explosive mix of heavy Arabian grooves, global psychedelia and North African trance music. The band calls it “Arabian fuzz” and they were hot on Stage 2 today! Their desert surf rock really makes you want to move regardless of the temperature. The four members come from the USA, France, Turkey and Armenia so they are truly an international band. Jaouad El Garouge is a wonderful and passionate singer and she sings in Arabic and Turkish and plays the flute. It was excellent to hear a cover of Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus in Arabic. Thomas Attar Bellier is the band leader and his guitar shredding skills are unbelievable. Guillaume Théoden plays bass and Paul Void on drums. My highlights of their set was Selma, Awal, the final song Gnawi and Dance of Maria with an outro that was a recording of Jell Biafra reciting a poem.
Next up was Moonlight Benjamin on the Foundation Stage. She and her band were so good and so tight. Moonlight was born in Haiti and learned to sing in church. Her career started in the early 2000s and through her music she tries to make Haiti and its story and culture better known. Her deep soulful voice was incredible. She lets her songs speak for her as she does not announce any of her songs. The only ones I knew were Wayo that opened the set and Alé who finished the set and both are from her 2023 album Wayo. Everyone was dressed in black which would have made her and her band even hotter than it was. She describes her music as a blend of voodoo and rock and roll and she certainly has an impressive vocal range to back that up. At one stage Moonlight states “Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not yet, you are here today, enjoy it” Sentiments I wholly agree with and the crowd seemed to as well.
On to Stage 3 to see Hollie Cook from the UK who describes her style as tropical pop. I would describe her style as a hybrid of high energy Funk, Ska and Reggae and Hollie and her band were immaculate performers. The people who choose the acts at Womadelaide really seem to know their stuff. Hollie’s parents are Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols and Jenny who was a backing singer for Culture Club. What is most impressive was that Hollie was on the final lineup of the seminal punk band, The Slits. Today is the first ever show she has performed in Australia and was very thankful for the amount of people watching her and her band. She has a magnificent voice and played some great songs. Some of the highlights were Win or Lose, new song Rockaway and 99 which was the best proponent of her Tropical Pop style which is about remembering the good times when she holidayed on the beach in 1999.
Next up was The Budos Band on the Foundation Stage who sounded like you were listening to the new opening song of the next James Bond movie. They are from Staten Island, New York and today this spectacular eight-piece band gave us immaculate brass and keyboards, seeing guitar riffs, powerful drums and bass. Budos Band were groovy instrumental perfection. They are a band with very eclectic musical styles and have been described as “doom rock Afro-soul big band with a ’70s touch. They were another band that let their music speak for them and did not tell us any of the song titles. My favourite was a song called Frontiers Edge which let every instrument have its time to shine until they all join in at the end for a most satisfying crescendo.
My highlight of the day was next on Stage 2 and José González had a huge crowd in the still boiling conditions. Jose is a Swedish Indie Folk singer whose career has been going just over twenty years. Today we had the absolute treat of hearing his superb 2003 Veneer album played in it entirety and this was then followed up by covers he would have played at the time as at the time he had not written enough songs to fill a set. The crowd were silent for his set and that was very welcome.
Veneer is a folk album that still resonates twenty years later and was self-produced and recorded in his home. Gonzalez explained to us that he was a different person twenty years ago and he was living an illusion, pretending to be someone who he wasn’t and hence the name Veneer for the album. Jose’s guitar and voice sound so beautiful and rich. He does not play often in Adelaide and based on today’s performance if he ever came back to Australia I would go interstate to see him. It was all brilliant but the crowds and my highlights were Crosses and Heartbeats. He has the ability to do covers in different styles of the original and therefore make them his own. The most interesting of these were Kylie Minogue’s Put Your Hand on My Heart and Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. The song of the set was Stay in the Shade which could be strewn to be a message to the crowd to avoid the direct sun but is actually about about the opposite as it is a song about life in general. How we see it. How we react to it. How we live it. Live life. Take risks. Take advantage of the sunlight that we are given before it disappears. Definitely special sentiments and a special set from Jose today.
After a break, I went to see Seun Kuti on the main stage who had an incredibly diverse and tight international band. Seun is the youngest son of the late Fela Kuti who was a fantastic performer and whom Seun honoured by playing a few versions of his songs. Seun has so much energy on stage and does not stop moving. He has a powerful singing voice and he and his band play tribute to the Afrobeat style that his father created. Love and Revolution was one of two new songs to be released officially this year and was a funky workout that included Seun’s first saxophone solo of the night. The final song of the set was the other new song called Emi Aluta which was another tour de force of Seun and the band’s groove.
The last act of the night was the up-and-coming Thee Sacred Souls from San Diego who had Stage 2 packed at 11:15 at night and will now definitely gain a following here after their sublime performance. They started with the song Overflowing from their only album and straight away we were treated to their smooth and velvety performance. They are a mix of 60s souls and 70s R&B and might be considered old school but in my opinion, music played this brilliantly and with such passion never goes out of style. Singer Josh Lane is a true showman who really knows how to excite a crowd. The word tonight was Love and he made several references to it and many songs delve into the intricacies of Love. During the song Running Away Josh jumped off the stage and ran around the crowd singing this song and the next It’s Our Love. I absolutely love his energy. We were treated to an unreleased song called My Heart is Drowning which was amazing with Josh’s soulful vocals. My favourite song was Happy and Well which highlighted the beautiful singing voice of Aston who was one of the backup singers. The song that everyone was waiting for was their signature song called Can I Call You Rose and was my highlight of the night.
A breathtaking end to a dazzling day that was day two of Womadelaide 2024.
WOMAD Review By Richard De Pizzol