Saturday, July 26, 2008

Happy Daze


I'm writing this post with an orange plastic wristband attached to my arm. My hair is full of warm summer dust, the soles of my feet have turned leathery and I'm suffering an attack of the hiccups that, without going into too much detail, remind me of the sweet potato and black bean burrito that I scoffed while joining in with a chorus of "yowzah, yowzah, yowzah." Ah, WOMAD; how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

For a start, the new Malmesbury site is conveniently located just an hour's drive away from my house - no camping for me! (well, not the sort of camping that involves a tent, anyway). This time last year, the rain was torrential - heck, this time last week the rain was torrential! But WOMAD weekend has rolled around, and guess what? So has the sunshine.

Last night we arrived just in time to see Chic on the main stage - actual Chic! The original, ultimate purveyors of ultra-fine disco anthems, the like of which the young pretenders have never been close to replicating. If you think you don't know who Chic are, please, please follow the Wiki link; if you haven't boogied on down to at least three of their greatest hits a thousand times, I'll donate my whole collection of Studio 54 compilations to Oxfam. Anyway, live last night, they shimmied, trumpeted and Diva-ed their way through a magnificent set, the only downside being that they strutted their funky stuff at 7pm, an inappropriate hour for a band who represent, to me, post-cocktail capers and champagne decadence. But that's a minor niggle, for I have now seen actual Chic! Oh baby, I'm happy.

But hang on, I hear you whimper; isn't WOMAD all about obscure bands from southern Guatemala whose names you can't pronounce, with frontmen called something like ee'n skia la tengrode? Well yes, of course it is! But it's also about - are you ready for this? - diversity. So why not throw Chic into the mix? And anyway, it's not like I haven't thrown myself into that mix with gusto. Last night, I also saw a band from Cicily, another from Cambodia and a Spanish Flamenco guitarist, and then I caught the end of a totally shambolic Shane McGowan duetting with Sharon Shannon. This evening, I'll be watching Eddy Grant (like, Oh. My. God) and Martha Wainwright (ditto - fingers crossed the rumours are true, and she's brought her brother with her too) ... but not before I've attended an African drum'n'dance workshop and a Vietnamese food masterclass. After all that, I'm going to the steam-powered fair, where I've already worked out how to spend my £5 pocket money (carousel, speedway and strongman, if you're interested). Heck, I might even have an Indian head massage! And it all goes on in the most gorgeous, pastoral surroundings; the atmosphere is elegant and family-friendly rather than crude and scary and over-branded and full of wasted no-hopers (yup, I'm referring to Glastonbury here). Okay, so the crowd consists largely of Guardian readers who have postponed their annual break in Tuscany to watch the Tashi Lhunpo Monks while swigging organic English wine and chowing down on fair trade noodles with Tibetan cottage cheese. Oh, count me in!

I want to live permanently in the Utopia that is the WOMAD festival. Call me an old hippy (I've been called much, much worse), but I just don't want the weekend to end ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

(orange wristband = Access All Areas media pass, so she's talking about *that* kind of Utopia. Still, it's pretty good on the plebs side of the fence too ...)