WOMADelaide reportedly being sold out for the first time ever may have been regarded by some as a sign of success, but given the oversized crowds and wait times music lovers had to practice patience throughout.
Opening proceedings on Stage 2 to a proportionally oversized crowd (an early indication of how the rest of the weekend is going to go down), in the bright, early evening sun, the adorable Aurora comments: "I'm going to get burnt in the sun. I'm prepared to become bacon for you," and with that she commences her uplifting energetic set with 'The River'.Dancing with abandon, she's having just as much fun as the rest of us, and this Friday night (10 March) pick me up is exactly what we need.
As the sun starts to set it is as though Luke Jerram's installation Gaia, a scale model of the Earth further back in the park, is seemingly reflected on the stage behind Aurora, like some kind of eclipse.
Gaia - image © Mike Lockheart
Even her darker songs evoke positivity as she jokes with the audience about swallowing a bug and tells us: "In an extremely sexual way I love you. . . That's how we do it in Europe." The set is over all too soon, and then the audience disperse into the park until the next big thing.
On the Zoo Stage, Grace Cummings muscular soul and blues performance has captivated her audience.
While you may be initially taken aback by her primal howl vocals, if you overcome that double take, you are rewarded with a mesmerising performance that has you wondering why you haven't heard of her before.
Balaklava Blues draw a sympathetic audience to Stage 7 during which Marichka Marczyk flanked by her hooded colleagues (one being husband Mark) sit astride bass drums giving a powerful performance of manual percussion and pre-recorded beats fused with traditional folk elements.
Marichka and Mark's introductions provide an insight into the Ukrainian experience ("What happens when things heavier than rain fall out of the sky?"), but there is still optimism ("In dark times, love always wins.").
For their final song, 'Let Me Out', the audience is encouraged to hold phone lights aloft and the self-proclaimed "fighters on the cultural front" removed their masks and performed a ccapella.
Grace Cummings - image © Mike Lockheart
It seems like all and sundry have been assembled before the Foundation Stage awaiting the headlining set by Bon Iver of glitchy, Autotuned folktronica from the collective that has risen out of frontman Justin Vernon's musical experimentation.
Apart from the tweaked abstract live production, at the core these are beautiful songs that reward the audience with opportunity to sing-along such as during 'Hey Ma' and 'Flume'. The pounding intro to 'Blood Bank' is anthemic and is followed by 'Holocene' before early 'hit' 'Skinny Love' is performed almost solo on a seemingly battered resonator guitar.
Jen Wasner on guitar and vocals shares front of stage with Justin while the rest of the band remain relatively anonymous during the satisfying performance that brings the opening night of WOMADelaide to a close.
The following afternoon of the second day (11 March) of WOMADelaide, at the Zoo stage there is a workshop performance by Justin Adams and Mauro Durante.
Having previously worked on projects with Robert Plant and Ludovico Einaudi respectively, this informative session served to give insight and context into their own current collaboration.
On Stage 3, Kefaya and Elaha Soroor captured the attention of the audience with their individual style varying somewhere between Middle Eastern, progressive rock and jazz fusion. At times Elaha left the stage, giving opportunity for Italian guitarist Giuliano Modarelli, Englishman Al MacSween on keys and drummer Joost Hendrickx to demonstrate their musical versatility.
Meute - image © Mike Lockheart
German band Meute's afternoon set on the Foundation stage was tight and dynamic with the choreography of the 11-piece, self-styled techno marching band bringing the members front of stage and breaking the fourth wall, half the band latterly stepping down into the photo pit onto the barrier to directly interact with the audience.
Although essentially a covers band, their re-workings of songs in the rave and house genres are a celebratory experience that transcend the usual format of string cover versions. Their repeat performance on Saturday night on Stage 2 was a definite highlight of the weekend and watching the audience driven into a dance frenzy during their hypnotic run-through of Frankey & Sandrino's 'Acamar' was difficult to turn away from.
Bab L' Bluz, translated from Arabic to English as 'the gateway to the blues', is an appropriate name for a band fronted by the striking Yousra Mansour.
Their joyous desert blues jams are a delight to watch as singer Yousra wildly solos on her guitar equivalent awichi (a traditional Gnawa instrument), whipping around her long curly locks with delight.
Bab L' Bluz - image © Mike Lockheart
The crowd had assembled for The Proclaimers long before the scheduled playing time and there was an audience countdown of "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" prior to their introduction and the photo pit was like the paparazzi in a scramble for photos.
Although half of the Reid brothers career-spanning set consisted of songs from their first two albums, the hits are left to last with 'I'm On My Way' and then the clunky but endearing 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)' concluding a wholly satisfying set.
Fantastic Negrito was an artist immediately embraced by his audience, his opening medley a salvo similar in style to Jack White. He tells us: "I've come all the way from Oakland, California, in an imaginary spaceship," and "I never heard of this city until a week ago but I like it".
In among his own compositions he throws in 'Ain't No Sunshine' and the traditional 'In The Pines' seemingly at whim and informs us: "I tore up my set list," and "For you it's a concert. For me it's therapy."
His performance is a distillation of so much that has come before in black music, the undeniable influence of Sly Stone, Funkadelic and James Brown's stage act.
Fantastic Negrito - image © Mike Lockheart
Sacrifices had to made in order to get a good vantage point for the upcoming set by Florence + The Machine and in retrospect, the pay off was worth it.
The spectacular opening performance of 'Heaven Is Here' sets the scene for the rest of the evening, Florence taking the full attention of the audience whether pacing and roaming front of stage, or an enraptured audience singing 'Dog Days Are over'.
She looms large over her band on the screen at the back of the stage and this is the only way the greater audience can see her when she goes into the photo pit to get up close and personal with fans up against the barrier while singing 'Dream Girl Evil' and 'Big God'.
Later, the melancholy autobiography of 'Hunger' precedes 'You Got The Love'. The rock & roll anarchy of 'Kiss With A Fist' drives the audience into a frenzy and the Rocky Horror theatrics continue into an encore that includes 'Shake It Out' and ends with Florence asking for sacrifices before 'Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)'.
A repeat performance of Gratte Ciel's 'Place des Anges' plays out in the air above the Foundation Stage, figures like white spiders traversing webbing with the eventual arrival of the blimp shaped like an angel baby and the snowing down of white feathers culminating in explosions of feathers that cover the ground and surrounding trees like snow. I am reminded of the joke: what weighs more? A tonne of bricks or a tonne of feathers?
Kronos Quartet start off their Sunday afternoon (12 March) set of the Foundation stage giving an indication of their range and versatility, this retrospective first half including 'El Sinaloense' sounding a little like the infamous Portsmouth Sinfonia before the soundtrack piece 'Lux Aeterna' and the abrasive, discordant Bernard Herman-esque 'Little Black Book'.
'Purple Haze' is introduced as "the first piece we played by Jimi Hendrix". For the second half of their set, they are joined by Persian vocalist Mahsa Vadat and play a sequence of their collaborations.
Kronos Quartet - image © Mike Lockheart
San Salvador are a polyphonic vocal and percussion sextet "from the centre of France" performing hypnotic compositions in the Occitan language, while between songs band leader Gabriel Durif provided amusing introductions, acknowledging his "not speaking English well", but he does actually get by. He explains their songs are sad songs because "we come from a sad region".
The epic 'La Lisetta' is a highlight although the multiple false endings had the audience all clapped out before the actual end of the song.
Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn's set of banjo melodies on Stage 3 saw them joined by their son Juno who contributed vocals to a performance of their 'Banjo House Lockdown' theme song among a set predominantly consisting of covers with Abigail performing a beautiful rendition of the Abbey Lincoln song 'Long As You're Living'.
Abigail Washburn - image © Mike Lockheart
Sampa The Great's set commenced with a dramatic overture-like opening incorporating an acknowledgment of the traditional owners before a set of funk and heavy beats during which she told the audience: "It's good to be back," before 'Freedom'.
Having relocated to Zambia post pandemic, she is proud to have a full Zambian band backing her, introducing 'Black Girl Magic' as an important song of self-affirmation for all the "black queens" in the audience.
On stage 7 Mdou Moctar wins over his audience immediately with his Santana-like guitar flourishes and high energy Tuareg jams, his set on this smaller stage could be seen as a dress rehearsal for the show on the Foundation Stage the next day by which time word will have spread and this dedicated crowd will have multiplied.
Mdou Moctar - image © Mike Lockheart
Monday (13 March) at WOMADelaide for those who have braved the previous three days is traditionally a day of catching up.
I had intended to watch Quinteto Astor Piazolla's legacy performance on the Foundation Stage, but only managed to hear their set as a perfect soundtrack to the roving performance by the exaggeratedly proportioned lower physique of members of the Didier Theron Dance Company doing 'La Grande Phrase', interacting spontaneously with themselves and individuals.
Early in her set, like many others enduring playing an afternoon on Stage 2 in the harsh sunlight, Angel Olsen comments on the weather: "Finally got some overcast coming in," and it is entirely appropriate given the moody, lyrical content of her songs but during the next 45 minutes these clouds part as some in the audience are introduced to an artist that deserves light shone upon her.
Following a trio of songs from new album 'Big Time', a return to her purer country leanings after the synth experiments of 'All Mirrors', she jokingly comments that the next song 'Shut Up Kiss Me' had only finished being written a few hours ago. This song contains the first inkling of Angel's trademark banshee wail that is demonstrated more fully a couple of songs later on 'Lark'.
'Sister' is a longer song that Angel had joked was even longer. Prior to the next song, she comments: "I wrote this song when I was upset. Ironically it's called 'All The Good Times'." She introduces one of her favourite songs to sing and Nilsson's (via Badfinger) downbeat 'Without You' ends the set on a high with the audience singing along, most likely having heard one version or another.
Angel Olsen - image © Mike Lockheart
On Stage 3, Madeleine Peyroux's smooth jazz was a contrasting comedown to the preceding high energy funk rhythms of Cimafunk having inspired a dancing frenzy at the nearby Foundation Stage.
In among a set of cover versions originally by artists including Bob Dylan, Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker, she performed a handful of her own compositions. 'Black American Heart' is an unreleased song that sounds like Carol King covering Leonard Cohen and actually preceded Cohen's classic 'Dance Me To The End of Love'.
'I Hear Music' is played as an encore before Madeleine is surprised to learn that she has more time to play and the band finish with Allen Toussaint's 'Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky'.
Madeleine Peyroux - image © Mike Lockheart
Soul II Soul draw a significant crowd to the Foundation Stage with the collective fronted by Caron Wheeler and Charlotte Kelly performing a well-received set including their own take on Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U'.
Band leader Jazzie B introduces the band with "Welcome to the world of Soul II Soul. We've been missing you," and narrates the proceedings giving context to the band that for some peaked more than 30 years ago, but demonstrate they are still relevant.
Having previously performed in Adelaide with an alternate stage show at the inaugural Harvest Festival last year, this evening's performance by Genesis Owusu on Stage 2 was a showcase of the Black Dog band and the talents of collaborator Kirin J. Callinan on guitar.
On a stage lit red like a hellish landscape and commencing at punk-rock speed with 'The Other Black Dog' and then 'WUTD', Genesis doesn't let down in the hour he has allocated.
Kirin, outfitted in a puffy shirt and attire you would usually attribute to the New Romantics, proves himself to be the perfect musical foil, as they dance around each other and play out their bromance in front of the audience.
Genesis Owusu and Kirin J Callinan - image © Mike Lockheart
Genesis rouses the crowd with calls of "Adelaide are you alive?" and leads a chant of the epic, anthemic 'GTFO'. Latterly, Kirin contributes a co-lead vocal to the chaotic, dissonant 'Drown'.
The set changes pace with Genesis announcing: "Let's do a beautiful song," for the sweet repose of 'A Song About Fishing' before the set comes to and end with the uplifting 'Good Times'.
Youssou N'Dour & Le Super Etoile de Dakar headline this final evening on the Foundation stage at WOMADelaide including within their performance of extended songs a recognisable 'Shaking The Tree', the beautiful tribute 'New Africa' and of course Youssou's most well-known song outside of Africa, '7 Seconds' which had the audience singing along (at least with the Neneh Cherry part).
Throughout the set, Youssou regularly stepped back giving opportunity to allow others in his band to display their talents, most notably to percussionist Boubacar Faye in the role of MC and the dancing fool-like Moussa Sonko performing physical feats.
There was still another final performance of Gratte Ciel's 'Place des Anges' about to commence, so exits were hastily made from the site for all those who had had there fill and needed a wind down after the hectic pace of previous days in order to prepare themselves to re-enter the real world.
