Festivals / Previews
Preview: Womad 2024
With a staggering number of festivals biting the dust this year, it is supremely comforting that one of the very best, most eclectic and most welcoming is still with us.
WOMAD – the World of Music, Arts and Dance – has been in its current home of Charlton Park, just a short journey up the M5, since 2007 and this year it looks as though it will be just as joyous as ever. It runs from July 25 to 28.
Moonchild Sanelly was a hit at Glastonbury festival at the end of last month
Perhaps, this year, it feels as though the outward looking WOMAD ethos is even more important than it has ever been – that embracing a world without boundaries should be something that we all aspire to.
is needed now More than ever
To that end there is, of course, music from every single bit of the world that you could conceivably imagine.
The festival’s traditional Thursday curtain-raiser features local schoolchildren collaborating with Bristol’s Brazilian carnival troupe, Bloco B, in a showcase of singing, music and dancing that is a culmination of a week of workshops.
Thursday night’s headliner is Italian reggae legend Alborosie but the London Afrobeat Collective, DJ Lils and Jazz-inflected hip hop and R&B of GS Collective will make arriving early well worthwhile.
Friday sees Young Fathers’ incendiary hip hop and Amadou & Mariam’s groovy desert blues headlining but Bristol’s Dr Meaker and the brilliant Tank & the Bangas will keep the dancers happy.
Both Moonchild Sanelly and The Zawose Queens were huge Glastonbury and they both play on the Friday too.
Folk punks Gogol Bordello are irresistible live and they will bring noisy good times to Saturday, although they’re going to have to be amazing to match Alison Goldfrapp‘s electro-pop slink that’s just before them.
Add Brazil’s Bala Desejo and 6 Music-approved indie types Deerhoof, and you already have a deliciously diverse line-up. Live funkers The Allergies and Seckou Keita & The Homeland are the pick of a stunning Saturday.
Bristol faces include Mohamed Errebaa delivering gnawa-psych with Robert Plant sidekick Justin Adams, contemporary classical composer Daniel Inzani and swing’n’bass DJ Mista Trick.
WOMAD favourite Baba Maal brings things to a suitably glorious close on Sunday but other serious highlights will be global superstar Sampa the Great and Zimbabwe’s Witch. How can a 70s Zamrock band whose name stands for We Intend to Cause Havoc be anything other than brilliant?
Looking at the festival from an entirely selfish point of view, there’s some incredible folk music too.
Cerys Hafana is a Welsh triple harp player and is, certainly, making some of the most exciting folkish stuff around. She plays on Saturday, as do Canada’s Quebecois heroes Genticorum and Bristol’s festival favourites Sheelanagig.
Sunday has folk super-group Hack-Poets Guild and Tamsin Elliott & Tarek Elazhary. All of these acts take folk music in wonderful directions, all are absolutely brilliant.
When you start adding in philosophy talks, science exhibitions, food from all over the world, a kids parade and any number of other lovely things, it’s no wonder that WOMAD is still going while so many other festivals have fallen away.
All photos: Borkowski Arts
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