I went to WOMAD and it was awesome!

If you have never been to a WOMAD concert before, you should seriously put it in your to do list.

Having never been to a WOMAD concerts before, I decided to join Geri and Ntt who were coincidentally heading there on that night.

For one of the rare times in my life, It didn’t feel like I was in Singapore that Friday night. Majority of the people that I saw were foreigners. But it was nice to see all sorts of diverse lifestyles here – groups of friends, a family with their toddlers, Ntt even spotted his professor from his university.

Many were dancing and moving lively to the different bands. The first one that we watched was the Mahotella Queens from South Africa. It was impressive to see these ladies in their 60s, shaking and dancing energetically. They have been performing for the past 40 years!

We were supposed to have Sheila Chandra perform afterwards but as she had a sore throat that night, there was the one man band, Muntu Valdo from Cameroon who played the harmonica and the guitar to replace her.

He asked the audience to sing along with him the song, Di Mala. I chuckled to find out that most of us got confused, till he had to repeatedly slow down and remind us to keep our tempo.

We then headed off to the main stage to listen to Clube do Balanco from Brazil. I really liked the sound of this band. It was a groovy Latin sound which I dig. I looked with amazement at low voice of one of the female singer. But she was great, along with the rest of the band.

Their songs made me start to tap my feet and finally put me in the mood to dance along with the other lively people. I would love to have their CD 🙂

Later, we went to see the Shooglenifty from Scotland perform. It’s an awesome combination sounds of the Irish fiddle and dance. I tried to do a jig, but it was hard to do that as I had no space.

It was impressive to see inhibitions down, with everyone dancing, no one caring if the others had two left feet.

And finally the segment that Geri has been anticipating, the Asian Dub Foundation. It had a electronic, punk sound and uses Indian drums. Ntt tells me that the band had a strong anti racism message which are delivered in their songs. But both of us couldn’t make out the words from the blaring sounds.

Nevertheless, they had the crowd jumping up and down, cheering, asking for more. One can’t help but to jump along to the beats. It was awesome!

I seriously enjoyed myself that night. No regrets!

Here is a clip of the nights performance

Click here to view in youtube

Friday night at WOMAD was great. Being live, the music was raw and energetic. You can really feel the music and you cant help but to absorb the happy vibe.

If you had the opportunity to attend WOMAD, just go. You wont regret it. Serious! The worse case scenario is that you could possibly be surrounded by perspiring, stinky people but the music and atmosphere will more than make up for it!

WOMAD Singapore 2007
Fort Canning Park, 24 – 26 August