Womadelaide 2020 – read all our reviews
The sun has set on a fabulous four days of world music at Womadelaide 2020. Here are our team’s reviews of more than 30 of the main acts.
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DAY 4: MONDAY MARCH 9
Matt Corby (Australia)
Foundation Stage, March 9, 9.30pm
He’s come a long way in just over a decade. Soul singer Matt Corby arrived in 2007 on a tacky karaoke TV show you’ve probably heard of, Australian Idol.
Today, he’s respected enough to be the last-minute replacement for the Grammy Award-winning Ziggy Marley, who pulled the pin last week due to family issues.
He might be a controversial choice for some Womadelaide purists, but the Queenslander more than holds his own on the Foundation Stage to a healthy crowd, but nothing like the one John Butler pulled last year.
“Clearly I’m not Ziggy Marley, I’m sorry, I’ve not won any Grammys,” Corby jokes before ripping into the showpiece of his 2018 debut album, Rainbow Valley, No Ordinary Life.
Corby, a full band and two backing singers wring every last drop of funk, soul and groove from album highlights All That I See, New Day Coming, Get With The Times, All Fired Up, Miracle Love and Better.
Then there’s the 2015 lesser-known, finger-clickin’ gem Sooth Lady Wine, the song he’s not overly fond of but is obliged to play, Brother, a blazing Souls A’Fire and a stirring version of Neil Young’s Old Man.
So much more than an off-the-bench replacement, Corby would have sold a few CDs afterwards ... if that was still a thing.
- Ben Cameron
Laura Marling (UK)
Stage 2, March 9, 6.15pm
A divinely-constructed solo acoustic set by an immensely talented singer-songwriter to a captivated crowd equals critic-proof.
British folk performer Laura Marling is arguably the ideal act for a tiring crowd on Womadelaide’s closing night, too.
It’s been another big four days and nights in Botanic Park and Marling’s collection of low-key numbers is the perfect tonic for tired eyes and ears.
She can pull a crowd, and the media, too, with more than 20 photographers poised between the stage and the front row, while punters in their hundreds stand transfixed, mesmerised.
With six albums and multiple Brit Award nominations (plus a 2011 Best British Female Solo Artist win) behind her, Marling is at the peak of her powers.
“You’re all very polite,” she thanks the crowd after another round of hearty applause.
Just like Marling’s music to some degree; it’s thoughtful, delicate and sincere.
- Ben Cameron
Mavis Staples (US)
Foundation Stage, March 9, 5pm
To state the blindingly obvious, 2020 hasn’t got off to the greatest of starts.
Bushfires and a possible pandemic ramped up anxiety levels and left people needing some collective healing. Enter Mavis Staples.
The Grammy award-winning Hall of Famer is a civil rights activist, actor and - most importantly - a soul singer with a serious set of pipes.
She might be 80 years old, but Staples is very far from retirement, having released an album - the Ben Harper-written and produced – just last year.
Staples is backed by a stripped back band - two singers, guitarist, drummer and bass player - but they lay down the tightest if grooves.
“So happy to be back with you,” she says.
“Three years. That’s too long! We bring you greetings from the Windy City, home of the blues!”
It’s clear that that famously raspy voice has lost nine of its timbre as Staples rips through tracks from We’ll Get By, as well as a bunch of classics like Respect Yourself.
However it’s the civil rights anthem Freedom Highway that really brings the house down. It’s a powerful piece of work.
“This is a song we sang every day as we marched the southern highways with Dr Martin Luther King!” Staples tells the crowd.
“My father, Pop Staples, wrote that song back in 1962! He wrote it for the big march! And I’m still fighting.”
Ms Staples was exactly what we needed on a warm Sunday afternoon.
- Nathan Davies
DAY 3: SUNDAY MARCH 8
True Vibenation (Australia)
Taste The World Tent, March 7, 6.30pm, Frome Park Pavilion, March 8, 9pm, Stage 7, March 9, 6.15pm
Coming out of Australia and Germany, but drawing heavily on their shared African heritage, True Vibenation lives up to its name.
Hip hop and soul melded seamlessly with more traditional sounds as a packed tent at the Frome Park Pavilion got its collective nod happening.
Mixing looped samples with live instruments – including saxophone and trumpet – the trio brought some soul to the stage.
Dancier tracks like Radiate – about the communal joy of sharing a fire – were well received.
Harmonies, hip hop and a small dash of 90s R&B – it works.
Catch True Vibenation at 6.15pm tonight at Stage 7.
– Nathan Davies
In the nets with the womens' Adelaide Strikers team
Ezra Collective (UK)
Stage 3, March 8, 6pm, Foundation Stage, March 9, 3pm
Vivacious London five-piece Ezra Collective are some seriously cool cats.
With utterly ferocious drumming, sparkling keys and hard-as brass and bass, the Collective produce a dynamic display on stage, and on night three at Womadelaide, with all the energy and chops of a rock band.
You’ll have a new appreciation for the art form after vibing out to their hot takes on modern pop tunes.
On antipodean debut, they set an undeniable vibe/scene and the throng appears to double in about 15 minutes.
The time to catch them is right now, with the quintet fresh from a Glastonbury appearance and debut LP You Can’t Steal My Joy just out of the oven.
Dubbed the present and future of jazz, EC are essential listening for day four.
- Ben Cameron
Flor de Toloache (Mexico/USA)
Stage 2, March 8, 6pm, Zoo Stage, March 9, 9.30pm
Flor de Toloache, aka the datura flower, is known as an hallucinogen – and this band is no ordinary mariachi band.
For a start they’re all women in a traditionally macho domain, and they aren’t all Mexican.
They play the standard instruments – trumpet, violin, Vihuela, Guitarrón – but they draw from a wide range of different sources.
Mexico of course has a very rich musical culture – there seem to be more professional musicians there than anywhere else on earth – and they draw on folksy cancion ranchera, mariachi and popular songs like Besame Mucho.
But there are much more eclectic contemporary influences.
They are excellent musicians and singers, and their modern take on Mexican music is hugely enjoyable.
– Stephen Whittington
Los Amigos Invisibles (Venezuela)
Foundation Stage, March 8, 5pm, Foundation Stage, March 9, 7.30pm
Discovered by Talking Heads founder David Byrne, Los Amigos Invisibles brought their unique brand of acid jazz-infused disco groove to Botanic Park.
The Caracas-based outfit has been together for almost 30 years, and it shows as they worked through a tight set without missing a beat.
The tight drums and Niles Rodgers-esque guitar chucking brought the disco, the maracas brought a Latin feel and the whole thing got feel moving.
The party vibe might have translated better had Los Amigos Invisibles been given a night timeslot, but with a schedule this packed you have to make the best of what you’ve got. Gracias amigos!
Catch them tonight at 6.15pm.
– Nathan Davies
DAY 2: SATURDAY MARCH 7
Kathryn Joseph (Scotland)
Moreton Bay Stage, March 7, 9.30pm and Moreton Bay Stage, March 9, 8.30pm
Scottish singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph has a unique style, perhaps the most individual artist at Womadelaide this year.
On the stage an upright piano with the front taken off is surrounded by mirrors and desk lamps. She comes on the stage looking distinctly old-fashioned in hair and dress, sits and starts to play a minimalist riff on the piano, singing in a voice which sounds childish, but then wobbles and cracks as though she is suddenly 90 years old.
It’s very mannered way of singing, and some people will find it irritating, but there’s no doubt it’s intentional. Overall in the mood is dark, the music full of pain and longing, and there is something haunting about it, a fragility that is disarming and moving.
The words though are difficult to understand at times, partly because of the vocal style and partly the Scottish accent, and the impact would probably be greater if we knew what she was singing.
At first Kathryn Joseph is baffling, but after a while her distinctive manner starts to have an effect and at the very least you cannot help but admire her determination to be herself and not conform to expectations.
– Stephen Whittington
Salif Keita (Mali)
Foundation Stage, March 7, 10.30pm
Third time at Womadelaide for Keita, one of Womadelaide’s greatest international stars.
Was he just in his 40s back then, at his first appearance in 1993?
He has always seemed the father of world music out of Africa.
Today the great Malian griot can still command the stage.
Now, he is in his 70s, and the voice is still magnificent, that powerful call that could be Spanish flamenco, North African Moorish, or the call of continental Africa.
The backing is reminiscent of his early rock band, with less of the big rhythmic surprises that made his 1990s backing band and music structures so thrilling.
Now the music comes out like an inexhaustible flow.
But the package is still magnificent; the backing singers step in as though this music is their life and the kora playing gives the big rock outfit it’s saving unmissable character.
– Tim Lloyd
B.Dance – Floating Flowers (Taiwan)
Stage 2, March 6, 9pm and Stage 2, March 7, 9.30pm
Taiwanese choreographer Po-Cheng Tsai, in his early 30s, is one of the names to watch in world dance. Floating Flowers, created for his B.Dance company in 2017, is his best-known work, but with commissions for companies like Gauthier Dance and Cloud Gate 2, he’s already firmly established in the big league.
Floating Flowers is a striking achievement. Tsai draws on the traditional Buddhist ceremony that seeks lanterns placed on water as an act of worship, bringing happiness and guarding against ill. He draws on a wide range of movement, with classical and contemporary allusions, as well as indigenous Taiwanese dance and even martial arts, but the lasting impression is of the dancers’ enormous white skirts, reminiscent of a, inverted lotus flower, glowing luminously, as if lit from within. Constantly twirling and rippling, it is a work of great beauty.
A full hour long, the dancers have hardly a moment’s rest. Even a false ending, about 45 minutes in, is merely a pause. The score, by composer Ming-Chieh Li, is exceptional.
– Peter Burdon
Spinifex Gum (Australia)
Stage 3, March 7, 9.30pm
Spinifex Gum is a marvellous mash-up of young indigenous women, Marliya Choir and Womadelaide darlings Cat Empire. Picture these women’s soaring voices lifting from the desert and combine with the foot-stomping fun of the Cat.
They describe their music as part protest, part celebration – a perfect Womadelaide mix. It’s a tightly choreographed performance. And then there’s Briggs, who did a cameo, but don’t expect that every time.
Also – the endorsement was very cool, but unnecessary. The entire hill was full. People streamed in from all over the park for this amazing ongoing collaboration. It was early enough for kids, late enough for canoodling – there was something for everyone at this twilight shindig.
There is a very good moral argument for doing what Cat Empire has done, but it’s actually entirely unnecessary to augment this talent with do-goodery.
– Tory Shepherd
Ustad Saami (Pakistan)
Stage 3, March 7, 7.15pm and Stage 7, March 9, 4pm
God is not a terrorist, according to Sufi singer Ustad Saami.
We have been treated to some great qawwali music from Pakistan over three decades of a Womadelaide. Saami represents a related but distinctly different tradition, khayal, of which he is the absolute – and only – master.
His voice has an ethereal purity of sound and intonation, and the intricacy of his ornamentation is extraordinary. This is transcendent music, about a spiritual state of being, a union with the divine however you understand that.
It’s not confined to any one religion or narrow understanding of absolute truth. The music sometimes rose to a level of ecstatic excitement, but more often it was contemplative joy that it conveyed. The singing of Ustad Saami and his four sons is a singular and incomparable experience.
– Stephen Whittington
Party Dozen (Australia)
Frome Park Pavilion, March 7, 8.30pm and Moreton Bay Stage, March 9, 4pm
Two people set out to test the limits of how much noise people can experience. There’s a bit of manipulation of sound through the saxophone of Kirsty Tickle but a lot of it is pure chaos with some interesting tonal overlays, apocalyptic in nature.
Great crescendos of drumming and sliding avalanches of saxophone help remove all thought.
The best bits are the assault of silence after the abrupt endings of the short numbers.
Occasionally Tickle will play against a backing track and the chaos gets a bit more structure.
The drummer Jonathan Boulet shows a lot of intelligence when he chooses to become a more musical ingredient in the pieces. He has tight control over the amount of white noise he lets out, and does so judiciously.
It’s a good thing that Womadelaide has become an outlet for sonic cultures of all sorts, and this must surely be a new sort altogether for the festival in the park.
– Tim Lloyd
Odette (Australia)
Stage 7, March 7, 7.30pm and Stage 3, March 9, 4pm
Odette appears on stage in a sort of Hepburn-esque getup, headscarf instead of flowing curls (Adele, maybe?) and a keyboard instead of piano.
But as her voice (almost) drowns out the cavorting bats, the timbre shatters any doubt.
For many, Odette sprang into the national consciousness with a soaring version of Gang of Youths’ Magnolia for TripleJ’s Like A Version. Her astonishing vocal range prances over the top of her piano playing in that tune, backed by an orchestra that gives depth rather than shape – it’s playing the second fiddle, if you will.
The pared-back version of her show at Womadelaide shows how superfluous the orchestra was. As the sun goes down and she shows the breadth of her original work, the words trip through staccato blips and angelic highs.
Odette gave the crowd a cheeky, slightly jarring peek at an upcoming album. She’s only getting better.
– Tory Shepherd
Public Opinion Afro Orchestra (Australia)
Stage 2, March 7, 7.15pm
What to take in? The howling five piece brass section, or the four fast dancing singers?
Both inexhaustible. Or the rhythm section and keyboards.
There’s a huge amount happening on stage, as the orchestra preaches about freedom. Fela Kuti would be delighted by this look alike funky circus of a big African band.
The big horn section drives the whole ensemble and the improvisations can get about 3000 people dancing for 10 minutes of hypnotic Afrobeat.
– Tim Lloyd
Minyo Crusaders (Japan)
Foundation Stage, March 7, 6.15pm and Stage 2, March 9, 4pm
With great aplomb this Japanese crew has taken a dying Japanese tradition of folk song, known as Minyo, and completely transformed it with Cuban and other Afro rhythms.
Equipped with a 10-piece band full of modern brass and bongos, the result is a noisy high jumping cacophony that’s full of high jinks and spiked rhythms.
They sing traditional folk song over the top of everything from bossa nova to reggae.
Sometimes it’s as noisy as a pachinko parlour as the whole band lets loose, and the male and female singers start calling out over the top of the music.
At times it reminds of the western rip-offs of Japanese music in films and on Broadway, but then you realise there is a long tradition of jazz and Cuban rhythms in Japan and perhaps the influence came the other way.
– Tim Lloyd
Deline Briscoe (Australia)
Zoo Stage, March 7, 6.15pm and Stage 7, March 9, 2pm
Deline Briscoe is singing, swaying, at the end of a sunny day in Botanic Park. Her sweet sultry jazz-ish music would be equally at home in a candlelit speakeasy, all big hair and beaded dress.
Another part of the strong Indigenous showing at 2020’s Womadelaide, Briscoe is a Yalanji woman, weaving culture through song. For years she has worked with legends such as Archie Roach and Emma Donovan, which in itself shows the vibrancy and importance of her work and the bright light of her future.
The release of her album Wawu – and the single it’s named for – saw her firmly claim the spotlight for her own. There’s someone from Jamaica in the band, there are backup singers, a tambourine, a horn section, a drum kit.
The thread that pulls it together, pulls it onwards, is not the beat but Briscoe’s stories, this songwoman from the Daintree.
– Tory Shepherd
RURA (Scotland)
Stage 3, March 7, 5.15pm and Zoo Stage, March 9, 5pm
RURA consists of four lads from Glasgow who kick up a storm with a fiddle, guitar, drum and bagpipes.
A massive sound emerges from this rather modest line-up thanks to the wonders of modern amplification.
Their music works through the familiar tropes of Celtic music, with lots of skirling and the rhythms of the reel.
It’s mostly high energy stuff made for dancing and they do it well, and loudly.
They don’t sing and they don’t waste much time with subtleties or sentiment.
Curiously I’ve now been to seven shows and only one of them – Kim So Ra from Korea – had any women in the line-up.
Just a coincidence I guess, bit a curious thing nonetheless.
– Stephen Whittington
Iberi (Georgia)
Stage 7, March 7, 3.30pm and Zoo Stage, March 8, 9.15pm and March 9, 1pm
Hailing from Georgia, Iberi are doing their bit to preserve the country’s traditional music from centuries ago and take in to the world, but they’re applying some unique storytelling and modern twists to it.
Their amazing voices are first on show when they open with a vocal number that contains sublime harmonies that make you think there must be more than six of them on stage singing it.
The group’s harmony work is a standout throughout, but it’s not just their voices doing the trick.
It soon becomes apparent the group are masters of a mix of traditional Georgian string and wind instruments, which become a regular part of their set.
Some of the group are masterful enough to play two at the same time, which is a sight to behold.
If their musical prowess isn’t enough, they also add in some traditional dancing.
Playing their second show on the Zoo Stage, further away from the rowdy bat colony that is a fixture at Stage 7, will only help their cause,
– Ben Hyde
Tami Neilson (New Zealand/Canada)
Stage 3, March 7, 3pm and Moreton Bay Stage, March 8, 6pm
It’s Tami Neilson’s first time performing in Adelaide and the Canadian-born, New Zealand-based vocalist is making up for lost time with a powerful set.
Neilson boasts a truly thunderous voice that she uses to belt out what could perhaps best be dubbed soul ballads but that also channel country rock and R&B.
Her band of electric guitarist (brother Jay), bass and a drummer fill every song with a rocking riff that makes moving to her music conducive.
What also makes Neilson’s set enjoyable beyond her music is her storytelling behind the origins of some of her songs (family members thinking she makes millions from her music and trying to write songs while looking after her children during school holidays among them).
She’s a truly engaging performer who had well and truly won the audience over, even before she dropped a version of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World, which on the eve International Women’s Day went down a treat and will no doubt be well received when she plays it on the day on Sunday.
It will be worth the watch.
– Ben Hyde
Luisa Sobral (Portugal)
Moreton Bay Stage, March 7, 3pm and Moreton Bay Stage, March 9, 6.15pm
This is a woman who has always been there for others, like her brother Sebastian, whom she helped take to win the 2017 Eurovision contest in duet.
She wrote the song, stepped in when he was ill and held the process together through the semi-finals.
She became a heroine of Portugal for helping deliver its first Eurovision win.
Now she writes and sings for her children, even the yet to be born daughter, Mary who is with her on this tour.
Visits to Adelaide’s kangaroos laden with joeys have already won her over.
There is a whole album for one daughter, a song for her son, and even one for the son that turned out to be a daughter.
So Luisa sings winning lyrical, soft and sentimental songs as she sits in the sunny botanical park.
Sobral has many musical talents and a voice to go with it, with shades of Billie Holliday and hot jazz that she adds at will.
Then there is her version of Highway to Hell...
A local brass trio fills out the sound, while her own lively guitar is accompanied by her partner on cool electric guitar.
It’s possible she is too modest and generous to actually take her fabulous talents seriously.
– Tim Lloyd
Gravity & Other Myths (Australia)
Near Stage 2, March 7, 8 and 9, 3pm
Seven years since its inception, A Simple Space, the show that’s taken Adelaide’s Gravity and Other Myths to the world, still packs a mighty punch.
It’s always exciting, often breathtaking, unfailingly good humoured and often downright funny. It takes on a new character in the companionable Womad setting, dozens of children sitting wide-eyed right up against the four by six-metre performance space, delighting in the eponymous gravity-defying feats of this incomparable troupe.
In short order, we’re treated to a rock-solid three-person tower, bodies cascading all about its falling frenzy, then on to a cheeky game of strip skipping, and woe betide the last person standing!
And on through a veritable encyclopaedia of acrobatic and circus arts, all executed at the highest level.
It’s wildly competitive, but equally collegial, and effort is celebrated just as much as victory. It doesn’t get better.
– Peter Burdon
Ifriqiyya Electrique (Maghreb/Europe)
Stage 3, March 7, 3pm and Stage 2, March 9, 8.30pm
This was one for the metal heads.
People not in that category fled soon after the performance started.
The rest either liked it or were deaf.
The roots of this music may lie in sub-Saharan African rituals, and we did get a few glimpses of that in between the relentless thrashing.
The music is primitive but paradoxically mediated through contemporary technology.
There’s a fine line between hypnotic repetition and torture and your musical preferences will determine which side of that line you put Ifriqiyya Electrique.
One thing is certain, these guys are loud. Like the band in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they should be playing from an orbiting moon for safety reasons.
– Stephen Whittington
Gelareh Pour’s Garden (Iran/Australia)
Zoo Stage, March 7, 2pm and Moreton Bay Stage, March 8, 8.15pm
Gelareh Pour has brought the Persian sounds of her homeland to Australia and entered the Australian music scene while studying ethnomusicology here.
The crossover is traditional, and mostly about her singing, accompanying herself on the bowed lute, or qeychak, in Farsi.
A rock sensibility has been added care of lead guitar and drums, along with clarinet, and these serve to fill out the music in a very deferential kind of fusion.
The overall effect is sombre in mood, reflective and subdued, where the plaintive contralto voice of Gelareh gradually takes the reclining audience off into a meditative haze.
– Tim Lloyd
L Subramaniam (India)
Stage 7, March 7, 1.30pm and Stage 3, March 8, 8.15pm
If you’ve wondered why Indians are great computer programmers, listen to Indian music.
Dr L Subramaniam is the great master of the Carnatic violin, and his performances have intricate structures, with rhythms and melodies nested inside larger forms, wheels within wheels, or subroutines to use programming language.
The result is far from just intellectual, it’s also beautiful and closely linked to human emotions that the Indians have been studying for five millennia or more.
In this mesmerising performance Subramaniam was accompanied by three percussionist on tabla, mridangam and ghatam, and as he observed, “a choir of bats” – possibly the world’s least popular animal at present.
A spacious performance of Raga Abhogi was followed by a lovely Raga Malika or garland of raga. Subramaniam’s extraordinary master of his instrument and his supreme musicianship were evident throughout.
– Stephen Whittington
Marina Satti & Fones (Greece/Sudan)
Stage 2, March 7, 1pm and Stage 3, March 9, 8.30pm
This beatific music for an afternoon in the park has a mixture of Eurovision pop, Balkan close harmonies and Arabic calls.
Satti seems equally home in pop or engaging in originals from her mixed Greek heritage. With her Fones – Greek for voices – four girls with fabulous singing and dancing skills, each song is like a video clip.
The whole show is made slick with great sampling and production, while on stage two big drum sets and a piper with a Greek bagpipe add shining top notes and powerhouse rhythms.
– Tim Lloyd
DAY 1: FRIDAY MARCH 6
Kim So Ra (South Korea)
Zoo Stage, March 6, 10pm Friday and Stage 3, March 8, 2pm
The rich heritage of Korean traditional music has been updated by percussionist Kim So Ra.
Her four-member ensemble includes Kim So Ra herself playing janggu, a double-headed drum, with buk (drum), piri (bamboo oboe), and gayageum, a zither similar to the more familiar Japanese koto.
The players use traditional rhythms and techniques but add elements of Western influence in harmony, venturing into the territory of jazz and free improvisation. It’s an engaging blend that remains as quintessentially Korean as kimchee.
There is a wild energy at times, drum sticks moving so fast they are a blur, dissonant harmonies from the gayageum and the piri adding a distinctive reedy, rasping tone to the mix.
No other music sounds quite like it, and once you acquire a taste for the sound of Korean instruments it becomes addictive.
These are four fine musicians and it’s definitely worth spending time with them to acquire some familiarity with a musical culture that still remains relatively unknown in Australia, despite South Korea being one of our major trading partners.
– Stephen Whittington
The Cat Empire (Australia)
Foundation Stage, March 6, 10pm, One Show Only
It took approximately three seconds into their opening song Kila to know that Cat Empire were back home at Womad.
Their trademark jazz/ska/funk sound, underpinned by their much-loved brass ensemble, rang out over Botanic Park and the crowd started bouncing.
Returning for their fifth time to Womad, it would be easy to say they’re a bit same, same or been there done that.
But there are clearly reasons they keep coming back – mainly because they put on a cracking live set.
But their love and strong connection with the festival, which lead man Felix Riebl told the crowd the band credits with giving them the platform to take their music to the world, is apparent with the passion they put into their performance.
The Empire filled a near-90 minute set with all their classic hits, with Two Shoes around the midway point kicking off what seemed like an endless run of top songs to jump to.
Steal the Light, capping off their main set, was a triumph, before the band returned to the stage to deliver a ripping encore that closed out with Hello, Hello and the The Chariot.
A sixth appearance at Womad in the future will certainly be welcome.
– Ben Hyde
Kate Miller-Heidke (Australia)
Stage 2, March 6, 7pm, One Show Only
Having played at Coachella and Eurovision, it seemed appropriate for Australian songstress Kate Miller-Heidke to add an appearance at a festival like Womad to her resume.
Drawing a strong crowd and as the sun began to fade, her melodic voice had punters starting to sway from the outset.
Together with her four band members, who were given a time to shine throughout with various solos, Miller-Heidke mixed up a set of her well-known songs with some new material she told the crowd she had started writing since returning from last year’s Eurovision.
Words – one of the songs that shot Miller-Heidke to prominence more than 10 years ago – had the crowd breaking out of gentle sways into something more vigorous while The Last Day on Earth brought all the feels and the “goosebumps” moment.
Telling the crowd she could now see why many had told her Womad was the greatest festival on Earth, she closed her set with Zero Gravity, the song she performed at Eurovision, complete with a crowd singalong.
– Ben Hyde
The Blind Boys of Alabama (US)
Foundation Stage, March 6, 6pm and Stage 2, March 7, 3pm
The appearance of the Blind Boys of Alabama to open Womadelaide 2020 is a cause for some astonishment. They began in 1944 and although there is only one original member left they are living testament to the ongoing influence of gospel music and its enduring appeal.
With a great band backing them, their set rocked along belying the age of some of the participants. Their style has evolved over the past 76 (!) years but it still speaks of the faith that has sustained black American communities over many years of oppression, segregation and injustice.
And, despite all, the music has an energy and underlying optimism that is irresistible. Classic stuff.
– Stephen Whittington
Trio Da Kali (Mali)
Stage 3, March 6, 7pm and Stage 7, March 8, 6pm
Coming straight outta Mali, this African supergroup continue a “griot”, or storytelling, tradition. Combining singing with ngoni and balafon instruments, the trio mines a deep groove that had the Friday night crowd swaying.
As an extra treat, the Trio Da Kali was joined on stage by local outfit the Pocket String Quartet. The mix of African and European instrumental traditions works beautifully, balafon and violin working off each other to create something unique.
“Are you happy?” the balafon player asks. Well, yes. Yes we are.
– Nathan Davies
Destyn Maloya (Reunion)
Stage 7, March 6, 7pm and Stage 3, March 8, 4pm
From a tiny Indian Ocean island east of Madagascar to Botanic Park, the dynamic, infectious Destyn Maloya kickstart Womadelaide with revolutionary rhythms.
Basking under the bats, the six-piece produce Maloyan beats, or the songs of slavery that emerged during hundreds of years of French Colonial rule in Reunion.
The collective, who have worked the world circuit for more than 20 years, already have a smattering of appreciative fans. Destyn Maloya might be short on English but they demand seated punters get off their butts – “Sitting … no” – and make their way to the front of the stage.
Close your eyes and you’ll be transported to a place and time far removed from one of Adelaide’s premier parks.
An authentic taste of centuries’ old culture with raw percussion and undeniable heart:pencil them in for either a Sunday or Monday arvo slot (at the Taste The World tent) if you need a spiritual lift.
– Ben Cameron
King Ayisoba (Ghana)
Moreton Bay Stage, March 6, 7pm and Stage 2, March 8, 2pm
King Ayisoba is such a good way to get into Womadelaide: A hugely energetic song and dance band driven by loud and percussive original instruments. And the king himself, Apozora Ayisoba, in a snappy white and black striped jacket, playing Kologo, the two stringed lute.
He sings in two voices like a call and response, one a roar, the other a snarl.
With the help of judicious amplification this a big sound and sets the tone of the pieces. He is joined by djembe, a magnificent marimba with gourd resonators, and other drums along with the amazing axatse, a spherical maraca played with virtuosic ease by a band member as though fiddling with a basketball.
The songs grow out of simple slogans of love, friendship, politics and protest that grow into long and complex orchestrations.
They are illustrated with spectacular displays of knees-up dancing, usually both knees at once. That has the whole audience on their feet.
– Tim Lloyd
Orquesta Akokan (Cuba/US)
Foundation Stage, March 6, 8pm and Stage 2, March 8, 8.15pm
From Cuba and New York, Orquesta Akokan boasts an impressive line-up of musicians with a strong foundation in the rhythm section and a terrific group of wind players.
Out front is singer Jose “Pepito” Gomez, a dynamo who can fit more syllables into a beat than you’d think possible. There were great solos from all over – piano, guitar, baritone sax, trumpet. This is a band with real depth.
Running through their mambo-influenced music is an inimitable Cuban sense of rhythm, energetic and yet languid, and just made to dance to.
– Stephen Whittington
Super Rats (Australia)
Frome Road Pavilion, March 6, 8pm and Zoo Stage, March 8, 7pm
Under the cover of the Frome Park Pavilion, Australian instrumentalists Super Rats set a distinctive mood on a cool, still Friday night.
Local but evoking the backstreets of Bucharest, the Rats bring a rich mix of double bass, violin, accordion and an unmissable 145-string cimbalom to the table.
“It’s like being a furniture removalist” carting that 80kg uber instrument around, according to chief cimbalom wielder and band leader Tim Meyen.
Producing a potent brew of tango, jazz, Ottoman court music and Balkan peasant folk, Meyen soaked up the local sounds of Romania for over a decade before assembling the Rat pack back here in Oz.
Think of that magnificently brisk soundtrack from The Grand Budapest Hotel and you’re somewhere in the ballpark.
Unmistakably Womadelaide, the Rats are worth a shot on Sunday evening if you want to dip your toe into something new.
– Ben Cameron
Ngaiire (Papua New Guinea)
Stage 3, March 6, 9pm and Stage 7, March 8, 4pm
Born in PNG and based in Australia, Ngaiire fuses fashion, art and music to create a multimedia assault on the senses.
Smooth, groove-driven pop is the order of the day (night?) as Ngaiire and her band work through a set that’s lapped up by her young fan base.
There are jazz influences here, and dance elements, but the whole thing’s underpinned by Ngaiire’s stunning vocals. She’s a star on the rise.
Oh, and for future reference, she hates dry ice smoke. It messes with her voice and it can only be fixed with whiskey.
– Nathan Davies
Artefactum (Spain)
Moreton Bay Stage, March 6, 9pm and Zoo Stage, March 8, 5pm
This performance by Spanish medievalists Artefactum was a gem. With hurdygurdy, bagpipes, vielle, crumhorn, drum and voices they transported us back eight centuries, revealing the underlying humanity of the music.
Beset by wars and plagues – not unlike the present – people lived life with intensity and passion, loving, drinking, eating and celebrating life. The repertoire ranged from the Cantigas de Santa Maria of King Alfonso the Wise, to troubadour songs, Carmine Burana, and songs from the monastery of Las Huelgas.
This was musical time travel, wonderfully evocative and superbly performed.
– Stephen Whittington
As The World Tipped (UK)
Frome Park, March 6 at 9pm, March 7 at 9.30pm, March 8 at 10pm and March 9 at 8.30pm
This is an agitprop spectacular, fully worthy of director Nigel Jamieson, one of the masters of big noise. The world is literally turned on its end, and the cast is left dangling 10 metres and more above the ground
Funnily enough this scene has an almost exact parallel in the staging of the climax to the Festival’s spectacular main opera attraction, Requiem.
We are watching scurrying officials dealing with global warming, and disastrous extinctions at a bureaucratic Extinction Desk where great piles of files are heaped up.
The Kyoto and Copenhagen Protocols play out futilely and suddenly the entire stage is picked up by an enormous crane and lofted into the air. The offices, files and officials come sliding off into oblivion and the survivors cling desperately to the wreckage.
The stage then becomes the screen and there is both spectacle and awe that captures something of the predictions of climate spinning out of control.
If you want to inspire your kids to join Greta Thunberg, take them along.
– Tim Lloyd