Groovalicious WOMAD - Trust me, Its good!
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 didnt 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 Uni.
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 their ‘thang 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 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 want their CD :)
Later, we went to see the Shooglenifty from Scotland perform. Its 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 couldnt make out the words from the blaring sounds.
Nevertheless, they had the crowd jumping up and down, cheering, asking for more. One cant 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
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.
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
Website : http://www.womadsingapore.com/
August 26th, 2007 at 6:59 am
awesome. sounds like I should be there. :)
Hello my friend - hope all is well
August 26th, 2007 at 11:19 am
I am famous!!!
Actually ADF talk about a lot of issues like race, religion, politics in their lyrics. You should try to listen to their CDs, a little less loud and a little more understandable..
Anyway, it was nice hanging out with you at WOMAD…
August 26th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Shane
Its a lot of fun! I’m sure you’d love being there :) WOMAD is held all over the world, but if you came over to Singapore, would be good too :D Hehehe
NTT
Yeah you’re famous now! :P
I’ve been going through loads of youtube clips about womad and have heard a bit of ADF messages. Hmm …
The pleasure is all mine, you were great company at WOMAD :D
August 26th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
hey i went on sat! :D fantastic… i really, really love david d’or’s performance… i miss his voice already. :P
wanted to catch shooglenifty but it was gg on at the same time as david’s, boohoo… and i miss asian dub foundation too! they only had the workshop on sat, no stage performance, and the gallery was PACKED - we cldn’t get in!
anyway i think it was money well-spent! :D
August 27th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Money well spent indeed! But the next time, lets try to get the early bird tickets :D Hehehehe
Wow, I can imagine that the gallery was packed. It seemed that they were the highlight for friday night when they were performing. Been surfing about blogs saying that they were there specifically for them!
August 27th, 2007 at 9:16 am
hehehehe. i DID. in fact, i paid only a little over 30 bucks? a friend got it for me at student’s rates, kekekekeke. and yeah, i feel kinda bummed i missed their performance. :P
August 27th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Wowie …$30? *jealous*
Anyway, maybe Asian Dub Foundation will be coming back to Singapore again next year :) Something to look forward to!
August 27th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
looks fantabolously fun!!
i’ve always wanted to go but somehow something crops up … next time eh
then maybe bump into ya
August 27th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I hope that you could go there next year Sha! It was really really fun and really worth it!
Even now, days after the event, I keep replaying that clip just to get a whiff of what I felt on friday!
Hopefully we could all go there together next year :)
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