WOMAD 2008

This festival is incredible!!!! We had such a good time! Everything was really well organised and enjoyable: the music was great, the food delicious, and it was clean, and people were courteous. And no hassle getting there and leaving the site.

We cycled there, with luggage and tent, but we travelled light this time (10-15 kg on each bike, including cereal bars and full water bottles). It was 75 miles (120km) from home to where we pitched the tent. We left on Thursday 24th at 7.30am and arrived at the camping field at 3.30pm, so we did quite well.

We pitched our tent, locked our bikes and wandered around the site, trying to decide which stand we would buy our dinner from. (That's a hard life!) We had an early night on Thursday.

They had a great recycling system in place, whereby if you brought back 5 or more pint-size papercups to their recycling point, you would get 10p back per cup. So there were loads of kids running around, collecting as many cups as possible, and picking up any cup that may have been left on the floor. This worked really well generally.

The other nice feature of the festival was the "Taste the world" stage, where artists performing at the festival present a traditional dish of their country, perform, and prepare food for the crowd to taste. You can also ask the artists questions, about food, their music, or anything else! As the presenter told, "it is cold 'taste the world', not 'feed the world', so there won't be enough for everybody!" This is a great opportunity to discover new cultures and their approach to food. For instance we had a fantastic report on the importance of coffee in the desert by Bedouin Jerry Can Band on Friday.

Here are the workshops/concerts we went to on Friday:

Cuban Dance (workshop), Cuba
Bedouin Jerry Can Band, (Taste the World), Egypt
Hamid Baroudi, Algeria
Billy Cobham & Asere, USA/Cuba
Toumani Diabaté, Mali
Bedouin Jerry Can Band, Egypt
Rachid Taha, Algeria

Best show of the day: Hamid Baroudi! (Toumani Diabaté and Rachid Taha were very impressive too)

Saturday:

Babylon Circus, France
Mista Savona, Australia/Jamaica
Paprika Balkanicus, Romania/Serbia/Slovenia
Monobloco, Brazil
Mamani Keita & Nicolas Repac, Mali/France
Wasis Diop, Senegal
Roni Size Reprazent, UK (we did not stay long, not our taste! Went to Dengue Fever instead)
Dengue Fever, USA/Cambodia
Lo Cór de la Plana, France
Eddy Grant & The Frontline Orchestra, Guyana/South Africa
Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar, Germany
Hotel Palindrone, Austria (may have been too late to enjoy fully)

Amusing fact for those who speak German: they are playing at a gig in Austria on 30th August, in a village called Klein Klein (Little Little), near Großklein (Big Little). I found this amusing. Apologies to my Austrian friends if this isn't!

Best performance of Saturday: hmm, difficult to pick one, but I would vote for Babylon Circus, followed closely by Paprikus Balkanicus and Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar.

Sunday:

Djembe Drumming workshop
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Mali
Squeeze, UK
Babylon Circus (Taste the World), France
Orchestra Baobab, Senegal
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Nigeria
GOCOO + GoRo, Japan
Mônica Vasconcelos Hih, Brazil/UK

My vote for Sunday's best show would go to GOCOO + GoRo, the Japanese drummers. They were incredible.