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Fig 1.
I guess part of the appeal of WOMAD is the journey to get there. I've lived in some fairly large cities such as Melbourne, London and Sydney but Auckland always leaves me with the feeling that you need to get out of it on a regular basis to recharge the batteries. It's probably also the knowledge that there's such beautiful nature and beaches once you get past the Bombay Hills or the Bryndirwyns that there's always a small voice telling you to hit the road. Unfortunately due to work commitments this year I hadn't had a break from Auckland since October last year. So the anticipation of WOMAD 09 was even greater than it had been in previous years.

Fig 2.
Let's face it. As much fun as a festival such as the Big Day Out is (did anyone else notice how much more chilled the BDO crowd were this year? No BZP ey?) you're never going to be overly enthused about the drive to get there. This year the trip to Mt Smart for the Big Day Out from Amplifier Towers in Mt Eden involved a dodgy taxi van, a radio blasting out Guns N Roses and a taxi driver who appeared to not care about such trivial matters as speed limits, traffic lights or giving way at intersections. The trip to New Plymouth in Taranaki is a much more sedate affair and this year myself and two photographers took a leisurely 6 hours to head down State Highway 3.

Don't be misled. Calling the road a state highway probably gives the impression of a multilane behemoth cutting its way through valley and hill with scant regard for the beauty of the countryside. State Highway 3 is actually a narrow two lane piece of blacktop that wanders through the farmland of the Waikato before hitting some twisting fern lined gorges that finally spit you out onto the black sand of the west coast. It's a wonderful way to spend a Friday.

Fig 3.
Okay, I'll get to the music in a moment. Driving down country you do really pass through some beautiful old towns. And if you want to see the real New Zealand then just wander more than 20 meters away from the main road. I think I'd like to go to a Saturday night dance at the Pio Pio Senior Citizens hall. I imagine there'd be cup cakes.

Fig 4.
So we finally got to New Plymouth and checked into our hotel. I'm not really one for camping, actually I've never understood the appeal of sleeping in a portable plastic sauna surrounded by hippies, but judging by the camping ground at the racecourse a good few thousand people do enjoy it.

Anyway besides music WOMAD has a lot of food stores that, keeping with the theme of culture from all around the world, have many varied international cuisines for people to sample. My favourite from the 2008 WOMAD were Hungarian Bread Puffs, which are basically deep fried dough topped with a choice of garnishes. The popularity of the bread puffs is immense and the queue to get one is often the longest queue that you'll encounter for the entire weekend.

In this photo the WOMAD Press Officer and her assistant get down with a bread puff on the Friday afternoon shortly before the festival started.

Fig 5.
The first band that we caught on the Friday evening was the Bedouin Jerry Can Band. The musicians are all semi-nomadic and live around Morocco. Now I can honestly say that I have never encountered a Bedouin band, nor have I much knowledge of their style of music. But that's the joy of WOMAD; discovery of new artists and types of music. Some, like the music of the Bedouins, will immediately resonate with you, while some won't. The enjoyment of music is a very subjective thing and what floats one person's boat won't necessarily work for the next person.

The BJCB though were infectiously good. When a song finished a different member of the band would take the mic and tell a little story that introduced the next song. At one point the singer left the stage and sang the rest of the song from within the crowd. They even brewed coffee (whilst playing a song about brewing coffee) and shared it with the people in the first few rows.

Fig 6.
The Bedouin Jerry Can Band felt authentic. From the Bedouin tent on stage to the robes that they wore (which we saw them wearing around the New Plymouth over the course of the weekend) there was no doubt that the delightfully happy music they played was what you'd hear in the middle of the desert in Northern Africa.

There was no attempt at fusion with western musical styles and as the weekend progressed I kept on thinking back to the Bedouins as being one of our happier musical experiences at WOMAD 09.

Fig 7.
WOMAD is situated in the picturesque Bowl of Brookland which sits on the edge of Pukekura Park. It's a wooded area with a few grassed areas that lend themselves quite nicely to hosting a stage, sound system a few hundred musicians and a few thousand eager festival attendees. This is the Gables Stage, which is only the 3rd largest stage for the event; however due to the sense of intimacy that you get there it always seems to host the bands that end up sticking in your memory. Last year Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings delivered a set of raw funk that people are still talking about today. This year NZ's own Little Bushman ripped it up.

Fig 8.
And this is Little Bushman, with Warren Maxwell in full flight, astounding the crowd with a one hour set that delivered a psychedelic rock wig out of incredible intensity. We got there just as the band went into Little Bird from their debut album, The Onus of Sand. They finished with Jimi (also from The Onus of Sand), their tribute to Jimi Hendrix.

The last time I saw Little Bushman play was at the Auckland Museum. The gig was fine but the venue robbed the band of the rawness that suits their sound. On the Friday night at WOMAD though they definitely let rip and if WOMAD were a competition then Little Bushman would have been in contention for first place.

The next day, on the much larger Bowl Stage that places the music in the middle of a lake and therefore far removed from the audience, Little Bushman delivered basically the same set. Everyone who I knew that attended both performances agreed that the Saturday set felt much flatter than the Friday night. Chalk another classic up to the Gables Stage.

And if you want to be a bit of a NZ music trainspotter then Warren Maxwell was on the Bowl Stage at 4.00 in the afternoon. At 8.00pm on that night Fat Freddy's Drop performed with Rio Hemopo on BV's and Rikki Gooch on drums. This is apparently as close as we're ever likely to get to a TrinityRoots reformation.

Fig 9.
The ladies running the Hungarian Bread Puff stall were mad keen Warren Maxwell fans. This sign hung there for the entire weekend. I still don't know if Warren ever got claimed his free meal.

Fig 10.
We finished up the Friday night watching Dona Rosa and her band. Rosa is a blind Fado singer from Portugal and a disappointingly small crowd turned up to watch her on the Gables Stage. Fado is a Portuguese style of singing that involves songs about hardship and poverty and prior to a small ensemble of musicians joining Dona Rosa on stage she sang with only a triangle for accompaniment.

Now this is where I get into the first of only 2 gripes that I have with WOMAD. There at times appeared to be a lack of thought given to the stages that an act would appear on. Dona Rosa is a tiny woman, singing delicate songs about how hard life can be. Delicate is probably too hard a word to describe her music. Fragile would be more apt. So while 40 or 60 people sat at the front of the large Gables Stage straining to hear a woman who had travelled across half of the world to perform we were constantly bombarded with the sound of Speed Caravan on the nearby Brooklands Stage. The sound of an oud (a fretless lute) being thrashed was apparently very popular with the people who witnessed Speed Caravan but to everyone who'd come to see Dona Rosa it turned what should have been a spiritual experience into one of sheer frustration.

Why she couldn't have been scheduled to play at a different (earlier) time, on a smaller more remote stage I don't know. Some music demands intimacy and respect and unfortunately this is not what the music of Dona Rosa was given. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who saw her play early on the Sunday on the Brooklands Stage to find out if it was a more rewarding experience.

My second and final gripe for the weekend was the sound. Several acts had constant problems with deafening feedback and had to halt their performances. The Brooklands Stage was the worst hit and you had to feel sorry for Natascha Atlas from France and Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 who started playing but then had to stop before they had a chance to hit their stride.

The ultimate technical screw up for the weekend came on Saturday night when Fat Freddy's Drop were five minutes in to their first song on the Bowl Stage. From out the front everything seemed okay but the lads from Wellington appeared to have joined a trade union because they suddenly downed tools and walked off stage. Everyone was a bit confused because there was no feedback and the sound coming from the front of house sounded okay.

But MC Slave, shortly before he got flattened by the loudest blast of feedback that I have ever heard, appeared to let everyone know that they had lost on-stage power. That would be a bit of a problem when a lot of your act revolves around an MPC.

After another 5 minutes the band reappeared but it was apparent that Mu had no power to his MPC and it took another 5 minutes of gesticulating and confusion before Fat Freddy's were back to their brilliant brassy best. Actually it was a fair sign that Freddy's are on form that in the hour they played they only managed to get through 4 songs. And they closed with Hope, which went down very well with the gathered crowd.

Anyway it's a shame that too many performances were interrupted by crap sound. WOMAD is a premium event, with appropriately priced tickets and a line up of some of the worlds best musicians. The crowd and the musicians both deserved better.

Fig 11.
The crowd at WOMAD is unlike any other festival in New Zealand. Look at this photo. Now count how many grey haired people there are. WOMAD is a festival where you can take along a comfy chair, pull up in a field and enjoy a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (yes they even sell wine by the glass bottle there).

This year there also seemed to be a large number of sub 15 year olds who were all dressed as though High School Musical had decided to do a Woodstock tribute. And yes, there were also the expected rope headed, hacky sack kicking, pot smoking, home-bus driving, tree hugging hippies there, but compared to other years they were surprisingly few.

Fig 12.
Okay people. This is the view from the back of the field that the Gables Stage was located in. Bet you don't get any views like that at Glastonbury.

Fig 13.
We took a brief break from the festival to go for a walk in the surrounding streets to see what life is like in New Plymouth. This family had set up a "museum" in their garage with a sign inviting passers by in to have a look around. The collection was somewhat eclectic. I don't think many of the items would have made it into any other museum. Unless the other museum had a section for empty Jim Beam bottles.

Fig 14.
An elderly festival goer raises his hands in the air. This could be for Detroit or even 'cos he just don't care.

Somewhere there must be an instructional manual that tells people that when attending a musical festival that they should don a silly hat. WOMAD is awash with Senior Programmers, Certified Accountants and Civil Engineers who for some reason believe that music will sound better if you're wearing a 3 foot tall hat that looks like a giraffe's poo.

There's nought so strange as folk.

Fig 15.
People in Your Neighbourhood featuring Urban Soul Orchestra were one of the highlights of the weekend. Built around many of the artists who have formed the nucleus of Auckland's Sugarlicks label, PIYN was bought together by the British Council and featured the UK's Urban Soul Orchestra who are a string section that have worked with the likes of Soul II Soul, Grace Jones, Destiny's Child, Jay Z, Peter Andre and Cliff Richard among many others.

PIYN was a musical mix of the cultures that make up modern day New Zealand. There was a good dose of singing in Te Reo, some spoken word performance about how life is for Chinese Kiwi's, Korean and Samoan rapping and various other multi-ethnic influences thrown into the melting pot for good measure. It would have been easy for this act to come across as an overblown Benetton ad but the quality of the music shone through.

Fig 16.
This photo was taken from the VIP/Media lounge that runs alongside the Brooklands Stage. Truth be told we probably spent a bit too much time in here relaxing, quaffing Macs Original and catching up with friends who we probably hadn't seen for at least 2 days back up in Auckland.

But the thing with areas like this is it beats the hell out of having to queue for beer or toilets out in the public area. Yes, this is how the industry experiences music festivals. Next time you're in the main area at the Big Day Out glance left and right up to the enclosed areas towards the tops of the stands. That's where you'll find the music industry. Air conditioning, beer served in glass rather than plastic and the volume kept to a reasonable level for all of the old people whose hearing is on the way out.

The band on stage taking their curtain call is People in Your Neighbourhood featuring the Urban Soul Orchestra. As already mentioned, they were rather good.

Fig 17.
WOMAD is an acronym meaning World of Music and Dance. And people loved dancing to Ska Cubano who lit up the Brooklands Stage on Saturday afternoon. The WOMAD guide describes Ska Cubano as an "irresistible fusion of melody, wit and joyous rhythm." I couldn't stop thinking of Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

Fig 18.
Special mention must go to Amplifier's own Mr President who held down bass duties with People in Your Neighbourhood (that's him up the back of the photograph). You can also find him playing guitar and singing with Batucada Sound Machine, playing bass with Ziko and knocking out some indie niceness with his solo project Bannerman. He's a man of many talents is our Mr President.

Fig 19.
The Pukekura Park was having it's Festival of Lights over the time that WOMAD was on. This is the scene as we walked back to our accommodation late on Saturday night. It's little touches like these that make WOMAD such a special event.

Fig 20.
This is your author standing on a beach on the way back to Auckland. The sky is blue, the sand is black and there was only 3 more hours sat in the teeny weeny Mitsubishi Colt Sport until we got back home to Auckland. The beach was a welcome break from the drive.

And that was our WOMAD 09. We'd been amazed by Bedouins, mesmerised by an elderly blind Portuguese woman, unexpectedly impressed by a bunch of multi-ethnic Aucklanders, had our stomach filled by Hungarian fried dough, danced to Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 and wandered the streets and parks of New Plymouth. All up, and with only a few small niggles, it was a near perfect way to spend a weekend.





Words By - I. Pasquali
Photos By - R. Sach
Except 5, 6 and 18 By - D. Clayton