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Review: WOMAD, Neston Park – ‘Gloriously eclectic, globetrotting music’
WOMAD has a new home this year, with a move away from Charlton Park and a welcome to Neston Park in Corsham.
It might be in a different place but the vibes are just the same. There’s the same gloriously eclectic, globetrotting music, the same sticky-faced children and the same chic embracers-of-middle-age.
There’s the same sense of fun, the same celebration of the diverse, the same fluttering flags. More than anything, there are the same smiles.
is needed now More than ever
WOMAD’s first edition at its new site at Neston Park marks a new chapter for the independent world of music and dance festival – photo: @garryjonesphotography
Saturday starts with the wildly inventive Beatbox Collective reminding us that “this is a journey into sound”. Everything that explodes from their Big Top set is created by their own voices – every scratch, every rewind, every beat, every sample.
It’s gloriously feel-good and has the dads at the back of the tent jumping. Hip Hop, drum’n’bass and garage mega-mixes are greeted with whoops, finger pointing and smiley singing.
Those smiles spread across the whole place as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air segues seamlessly into Gangsta’s Paradise. The stage for the day is well and truly set.
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For an entirely different but no less wonderful journey into sound there’s New Orleans’ Sabine McCalla over on the Village Stage. Wind-blown Americana drifts over the Wiltshire fields, all dusty and world-weary.
She is steeped in a creaking old-timey broth of battered guitar strumming and a defiant coo. On Lonely Lovely, taken from her Don’t Call me Baby album, her bluesy croon sends a quiver through the mid-afternoon heat haze.
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One of the great things about WOMAD is that you can toss a coin, decide on a band to go and see and find your new favourite thing.
Sadly the ethereal alt-folk of Lemoncello lost the coin toss but that just meant that Mexico’s Mixantena de Santa Celia got a chance to steal hearts. And, oh boy, they did.
Irish trio Lemoncello blend velvety vocal harmonies with strings and tasteful percussion – photo: Ursula Billington
A ten-piece band of two percussionists and eight brass players, they were astonishing. Military drum beats lead a fiesta of trumpets, saxophones and trombones until every foot is tapping, every head nodding, every face creased with a grin.
Two dancers help punctuate the music, lending context as they swirl around one another, dipping their heads in a pre-kiss, twirling handkerchiefs until, finally, they embrace and waltz.
Mixantena de Santa Celia are a true feast for the sense that gets the whole Big Top jumping – photo: Ursula Billington
A tuba lends heft, an anchor around which Cantina trumpets blare and scorch, there’s brassy funk from the trombones and vibrant, jazzy stabs of saxophone as the dancers spin like tops.
This is a traditional smear of reds and oranges from the Pacific Coast; there are Chilenas, Boleros and Cumbias, each aimed at the dancefloor, each an explosion of joy.
With El Torro, the male dancer dons a donkey/goat/bull mask that is part malevolence, part party-sprite. He is a Mexican Pan and whips the band, and the audience, to heights of delirium. They are exhausting, in the best way possible.
Their wild costumes, huge brass section and a bull puppet that is sent to dance in and with the crowd prove an all-encompassing experience – photo: Ursula Billington
LYR, the post-rock three piece fronted by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, slow things down a little. They twinkle with restrained beats, unfurling like a good book.
Richard Walters’ voice has the androgynous sweetness of modern indie but it is Armitage and his deadpan poems that snag at the ear.
The contrast between the two voices only serve to bring Armitage’s fabulous images to sharp focus. He is our finest wordsmith and it is, of course, the words that matter. The Enlightenment is in praise of libraries and it is wide-eyed in its love of words; those images fly from pages of books bumping up at the top of the tent.
If Radiohead were half as good or clever as they think they are, they might be LYR.
Armitage performs his poems, flanked by a beat-maker and singer-guitarist, and the crowd enjoys his deadpan Yorkshire humour between songs – photo: Ursula Billington
For all of the fantastic sounds from the far-flung corners of the globe that WOMAD offers, there are times when some perfect pop music just hits the spot.
Say She She deliver slices of pure summery goodness, brilliant choruses and fabulous girl-group shimmer. They are the band you want to hear with the late afternoon sun on your back, to finger-click along to at a New York block party, to shimmy-grin with all of your mates.
C’est Si Bon is a disco-soul anthem, only challenged by a golden version of I Believe in Miracles. Cut & Rewind is just all about the vibes and Astral Plane is a hazy wash of psych-soul, just right for a warm day.
Say She She offer up a sunny slice of disco pop – photo: @garryjonesphotography
If Saturday was all about figuring out how this new home worked, then Sunday was for stretching out to catch and enjoy the grooves. The grooves came from all over the place, of course.
Garifuna Collective are celebrating their twentieth anniversary and this eight piece from Belize are the personification of Sunday afternoon.
‘The group has maintained its strength despite incredible adversity but the history of the Garifuna people is one of struggle,’ the band says – photo: @garryjonesphotography
High, choppy funk guitar and a loping bass create a gorgeously loose groove that stretches over the fields spreading utter joy.
On Miami, rattling percussion and that urgent guitar lift vocals up into the endless blue. The classic Wátina has arms aloft and a mass, collective singalong; proof positive that language barriers mean nothing when the music feels this good.
They hit WOMAD at the end of a world tour celebrating their 20th anniversary – photo: @garryjonesphotography
If there is a global pop star waiting to emerge from WOMAD this year then it is, surely, Mbali Makhoba, the singer with South Africa’s (newly re-invigorated) Freshlyground.
She has an easy charm and a voice that simply spreads happiness. There’s a touch of Winehouse soul to Rock my Bones, some 80s pop on Jabula and unabashed rocking for Make It.
Her band are awesome – all sun-kissed flute, funky guitar, Hammond organ goodness – but it’s Makhoba that is totally captivating. By the time they played Waka Waka her got-to-be-a-star status was nailed on.
There’s a family friendly vibe to WOMAD, with the World of Children area feeling more integrated in this new iteration of the festival site – photo: Ursula Billington
Over in the Big Top, there’s a revolution going on. Wild Wild Women are India’s first all female hip hop group and they are smashing every single stereotype that you can possibly imagine.
Huge beats rattle chests as five of the Collective land punches with every rhyme, every verse. There’s such a feeling of unity, strength and community and, as small girls are lifted on to shoulders in the audience, there’s a sense that this band are genuinely, thrillingly important.
With the odd cheeky Bollywood sample and uplifting positivity Wild Wild Women have the place jumping, shouting, singing.
The punishing schedule of relentless brilliant music, talks and workshops to attend proved too much for some – photo: Ursula Billington
More than any other festival in the UK, it is at WOMAD that you’re likely to come across something where the only possible reaction is “what????”
Japan’s Seppuku Pistols provide that moment this year.
The group are said to channel ‘protest through an indigenous Edo-era aesthetic and spirit’ – photo: @garryjonesphotography
Punk played on traditional Japanese instruments? Ear-splitting high whistles, brass gongs, howling?
The appearance of a grass-skirted sprite? Seven drums relentlessly pounding savage rhythms while launching themselves into the audience? Covers of the Stooges and Chaos UK? A WOMAD mosh-pit?
Sure, there’s all of that and about a thousand other things too. They are bewildering and brilliant in equal measure. Totally, utterly insane.
They put an unusual spin on songs by the Dead Kennedys and Iggy Pop – photo: @garryjonesphotography
It seems that the world is there for the taking for corto.alto. By the end of their set everybody is in motion, dancing madly to Liam Shortall’s bubbly, jazz noodles.
Electronic beats skitter and tumble, boom and nod over saxophone and trombone, samples are scrunched and chopped, tossed into the air for people to dance on.
There’s warmth in the improvisations and joy in the keyboard tweaks. Graham Costello’s drumming allows everything else the time and space to unwind, to unhinge, to dance. On a day of music to make the heart swell, corto.alto were triumphant.
Glaswegians corto.alto are a hit – photo: @garryjonesphotography
Last year was a sad year without WOMAD but, safe and sound at Neston Park they prove, as ever, that home is where the smiles are.
Main image: @garryjonesphotography
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