Thursday 24th until Sunday 27th July 2008 @ Charlton Park, Wiltshire
Featuring: Chic, Lo Còr de la Plana, Billy Cobham, Finley Quaye, Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar

There can’t be many better ways to get around than on a bicycle: the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, independent, free, liberated. Waking up Friday morning in Bristol then and pulling open the curtains to the brightest, bluest day since records began, cycling to WOOOOPMAD! festival near Chippenham became the only option! Absolute essentials and the smallest two-man tent known to man (ha!) were thrown into backpacks and with only my trusted LifeCycle map of South Gloucestershire clutched in my sweaty hands, we were off!

32 miles says the map. WOMAD (World of Music and Dance), Charlton Park, Wiltshire, was what we were steering towards and busy roads were what we were steering away from. Without having to rely on timetables and traffic, we were free to roam and explore the towns and hillsides of the lower Cotswolds; beautiful Badminton and tantalising Twatley were just some of the highlights on the way. It became the perfect way to get ourselves ready for a weekend of liberation, open-mindedness and a willing to embrace new music.

Pulling into Charlton Park four hours later with backs and bums as sore as Hades and doused in enough sweat to drown an ant colony, we were in desperate need of cider and a relaxing evening. After pitching up base, first port of call was exploring the ‘World of Wellbeing’ – a field given over to the hippies much in the same way as Glastonbury’s Green Fields.

The atmosphere here did bear a striking resemblance to Glasto’s popular pastures, not least because we actually saw Michael Eavis pottering around checking out what was on offer, but everything here was much more open plan. Tents scattered thinly throughout the light forestry and every time you poked your head around a shrubbery, there was another new tipi offering some ludicrous form of new-age therapy. You name it and it was here under the shade of the high branches; tents offering every form of massage under the sun, reflexology tipis, acupuncture yurts, gong baths, tarot card reading gazebos and meditation marquees all dotted amongst cafés and stalls; if you wanted to water-birth your baby up a tree then baptise it in hemp oil and cloth it in woven dreadlocks, I’m sure you could have found a suitable tent somewhere in the undergrowth.

Of all my first impressions of WOMAD though, the most amazing and charming experience were the smells. As we winded through the sunny, meadow path set out for us amongst the trees in the World of Wellbeing, every turn tickled my nostrils – incense, spices, flowers, frying, perfumes, curries, teas, fruit – and often I was not even able to see where the scents were coming from but they were all invigorating and seducing.

When we had finally wandered into the small arena at WOMAD, we were ready for some music! Deep into the afternoon now, we headed for the main stage to see what was on offer and were thoroughly taken aback when we found ourselves watching Chic, the 70’s disco pioneers. Before then I had no conscious idea of who they were but that was before they started cracking out timeless hit after timeless hit that I knew every word to: Everybody Dance, I Want Your Love and the immortal “Wooooaaaaahhhh Freak Out!” were just a few of the songs that the crowd eagerly lapped up; the last a track one that I had actually covered while in a band as a teenager without ever realising who had sung the original!

Amongst the boogying crowd we got talking to WOMAD regular and Mr. All Things Music - Merlin the hippy (real name); “I’ve been coming here 20 years! It brilliant! Perfect weather isn’t it? Last year was a bit of a washout and I couldn’t even put Cassius down.” - Merlin’s now 4 year old son who jumps up and down enthusiastically on Merlin’s shin as we chat - “This is only the second year it’s been in Wiltshire. WOMAD used to be near Reading; it was good there but here instead of just inhabiting a space, it’s really set out nicely and the park really feels part of the festival.” Merlin is by no means the exception at WOMAD and after our natter I notice just how much of a family festival this is; there are plenty of teenagers and young adults as you’d expect but it’s also prams galore as well as a strong and proud following from the middle aged music lovers, many of whom have been attending for years. All ages seem to thrive at WOMAD at it makes for strangely calming and enjoyable atmosphere.

We head off again into the trees on a mission of discovery and WOMAD doesn’t disappoint. The main arena may have its three large stages, two of which are under gargantuan tents allowing bands to play to several thousand at a time, but WOMAD’s best stage is hidden deep in the undergrowth. Little more than a glorified tree-house, the Radio 3 stage here is gloriously intimate with the platform looking out over a small clearing fit for only a few hundred people. With a mandatory Gem ale in hand we were starting to really feel the pains and aches of that afternoon’s excursion but decided to hang around and watch a few random bands; nothing could have prepared us though for the six men who were about to climb on stage next. A chorus of singers from Marseilles, they were without a shadow of a doubt the best thing we saw all weekend.

With just their collective voices, a couple of hand drums and a tambourine, Lo Còr de la Plana blew the crowd away with their simple yet astonishing melodies. They sung intricate, overlapping harmonies that chorused back and forth on top of some sly beats from just hand-clapping and foot-stomping. It was astoundingly good. They thrived on playing with the volume, tempo and the density of sound in their songs and everything was perfectly in-time and note perfect. What they created was captivating, uplifting, addictive, thoroughly enjoyable and unlike anything I had ever seen or heard before. Based in the Southern France in the middle of the Mediterranean, Lo Còr de la Plana draw influences from all their surroundings with shades of Eastern European, Arabic and African music in the creation of a sound that is utterly original. Even more astonishing was that the tunes were sung in Occitan, a dying form of French dialect.

The astonishing performance did not go unnoticed by the crowd and Lo Còr de la Plana sparked a mass conga in the Radio 3 stage audience as hundreds of people of all ages linked hands and enthusiastically danced around in long party chains wooping and hollering.

Saturday morning and feeling a little stiff to say the least, an hour of yoga in the dance tent and an hour of Tai Chi in Big Red became the best medicine to creaky joints and aching muscles. One orange juice and a falafel later were given a drumming master-class by Billy Cobham, eagerly described by Merlin as “one of the greatest drummers that has ever lived!”, and his set was suitably impressive as he beat away behind an enormous drum-kit that seemed to barely fit on the stage.

That afternoon we also hung around for a disappointingly lacklustre performance from Finley Quaye but that was more than made up for in the evening when Saturday’s proceedings were rounded off superbly by Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar. Their gypsy-pop mayhem got the crowd in the Big Red Tent in full dancing mode and bouncing like loons to their frantic songs, creating a vortex of euphoria! Their performance and onstage enthusiasm whipped the crowd into an excited frenzy as did their dramatic visuals. At one point while the singer was vigorously beating a drum at the front the stage, someone poured water over it meaning that every time his arm came down for a beat there was a dramatic eruption of water that exploded over the stage – it was cheap and sure didn’t add anything to the music but looked bloody fantastic! They even threw a couple of hundred paper cups into the front row mid-song then went running around with bottles of vodka giving the crowd some free booze!

I think Shantel & Bucovina Club Orkestar were from somewhere in the Balkans, or maybe even Turkey but origins were not important and this was underlined by something profound uttered by their lead singer as he caught his breathe between songs; “We don’t want to be thought of or referred to as gypsy music. We don’t signify a genre or represent our country. At WOMAD we just want to play, listen and embrace music from wherever it comes from. This is music without passport control!”

www.womad.org

Matthew Whittle www.matthewwhittleblog.blogspot.com & Joe Shields