WOMADelaide @ Botanic Park, Adelaide 7/3/2025
As the gates of Adelaide’s Botanic Park open for the 2025 installment of the WOMADelaide festival, this year’s event promises to be another fine showcase of music, arts, theatre, culture and culinary delights from all corners of the globe. And while the calendar may say autumn, the conditions are distinctly summer this Friday evening, so what better way to kick off WOMAD 2025 than the vibrant creole sounds of Lindigo. Hailing from Reunion, the nonet (that’s nine members!) bring bombastic, danceable, syncopated rhythms in the traditional style of Mayola. Up, down, forward, back, left, right, Lindigo know how kick off the WOMAD party in style and get the crowd moving in all directions.
Making their Australian live debut at WOMAD feels fitting for Durand Jones & The Indications. Their retro-soul and funk takes the crowd right back to another place and time, and while I could name-check a bunch of older soul artists that they remind me of, hell, Durand Jones and The Indications are their own thing and are absolutely shining brighter than the Adelaide sun this evening. Jones’ powerful and emotive voice melds seamlessly with drummer Aaron Frazer’s soaring falsetto, as the band lay down smooth grooves on tracks like Don’t you know and Circles. Sadly, the message of Morning in America feels particularly pressing with Jones admitting, “people in our country are really scared right now.”
With a couple of ARIA awards under their belt for their latest LP Kill the Dead, the crowd at the Zoo Stage is bursting at the sides for 3%. The First Nations hip-hop group bring a formidable live show packed with plenty of energy delivered by vocalists Angus Field, Dallas Woods, and Nooky, along with their dynamic backing band. Land Back and Black Australia Policy serve as powerful truth-telling tracks that are at the core of 3%’s message, while Coming Home and their cover of Young Blood exhibit their musical breadth. With a plethora of young ones at the front of the stage, and just a stone’s throw from the Kids Zone, it’s an Australian history lesson of sorts, with a few new words for the youngsters to ask mum and dad about on the way home.
Armed with nothing but a guitar and sampler, UK singer/songwriter Bess Atwell has the seated crowd mesmerised over at the Moreton Bay stage. Having cut a new album with Aaron Dessner of The National, Atwell’s indie folk cred is on full display, her angelic voice is gentle and vulnerable, layered over a backdrop of ethereal soundscape loops which drift into the balmy night air. For some, it’s a fitting wind-down from a warm Friday afternoon, for others it’s the perfect warm up to the headline act about to hit the Foundation Stage.
It’s been eight years since PJ Harvey’s last visit to Adelaide and there is A LOT of love for PJ in the park tonight. Her one-and-a-half-hour set is roughly split into the old and new, the first half easing the audience into the eerie and unnerving world of her latest album I Inside the Old Year Dying. It’s a theatrical and engrossing start to the show. Sung by just Harvey’s band, the ANZAC-inspired ballad The Colour of the Earth, serves as an interlude before the more rockier, riff-laden half of the show sets in. Tracks like The Words the Maketh Murder, Down by the River and the super-grungy To Bring You My Love are delivered with potency and vigor, and the almighty 50ft Queenie is a crowd favourite, with Harvey prowling across the stage and reminding everyone just who’s boss. Rounding out the encore with C’mon Billy and White Chalk, PJ Harvey’s latest live show again demonstrates why she’s one of her generation’s most revered and celebrated artists.
Bringing night one of WOMAD to a close at Stage 7, home-grown Adelaide DJ Norsicaa feeds the late crowd a unique dose of worldly pop, funk and beats, bringing an electrifying party atmosphere for the both the humans, and flying foxes, eager to boogie into the night.
WOMAD Review By Matt Eygeneraam