Having prompted people to discuss their reasons for not going to Womad I feel the need to redress the balance and big up the festival experience. So here's my version of events at RHYTHMS OF THE WORLD last weekend.
SATURDAY
Rhythms of the World 2014 had got under sail around four hours before my wife and I clambered aboard. I had intended getting there early enough to support the opening acts but other things got in the way. I really feel for unsupported support acts. I hope they had some sort of crowd early on.
Hitchin Priory is a wonderful spot for a music festival and it was a fine sunny day. I'd highlighted a few names in the programme but I had the luxury of no great expectations. I never again expect to be left wide-eyed and breathless in the way that early encounters with Rory Gallagher,Chuck Berry, Captain Beefheart, Youssou N'Dour, Remmy Ongala, Anglique Kidjo........ all left me. I pretty much know what to expect these days. And so, at Hitchin, it pretty much turned out, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a good time to be had.
We went in, past a couple of stages and stopped at the third where a team of Ghanaian drummers were set to do their stuff. These were the Kakatsitsa Master Drummmersfresh from performing at The Commonwealth Games, who now momentarily sat and endured an hilarious introduction mocking their tongue-twisting name. Then they were off. They hooked up a seemingly endless rhythm pattern which did eventually evolve into a nice little groove. They chanted, called and responded, stopped, restarted, and built up again. This is where it all goes wrong at festivals. I needed really to immerse myself in all that for an hour, probably with my eyes closed and I'll bet I'd have come out of it feeling wonderful. Instead, like a schoolboy at a fairground which this all resembled, I wanted to be off to the next thing. I headed to the main stage where Toque Tambour were performing.
I'm always irrationally suspicious of musical groups in uniforms, even if that uniform is only blue T shirts and jeans but Toque Tambour won me over. They are sixty local people who've spent a year in weekly hand-drum classes preparing a Rio carnival performance just for this event. With a great singer and a couple of dancers up front, and with occasional forays into soul and salsa,they brought the crowd into party mode.
Time for a bit of fifties-style rockabilly down at The Icehouse stage. I should say, at this point, that I was limping around the site supported by a single crutch to take pressure off a damaged right ankle. By the time we got there Guido and The Hellcats were already motoring. Guido, a spud-faced eighteen year old with a Flying V guitar, could sing ok and he was well supported on bass and drums by two young lads who couldn't have looked less like Hellcats if they'd tried. They were bloody great! Yet despite storming versions of Fulsom Prison,and Tainted Love (yes, that one), the audience for the most part sat on their hands, only a few girls dancing on the rather bare looking patch at the front of the stage. I did my supportive best to lurch around on my one good foot, occasionally adapting my crutch to air guitar. Guido's girlfriend,to whom he'd dedicated the low point of his act, the murder, in the key of J, of Will You Love Me Tomorrow? came forward with a couple of friends to dance as the last number was announced. A more elderly couple also made their way to the front presumably to show these youngsters how to jive but alas, the guy stumbled and fell on his approach and failed to start. Guido deserved a better, fitter audience. By now, I too was looking for a seat.
Back at the St.Mary's Stage where we'd seen the drummers earlier they had seats,church pews in fact. The presence of these and the fact that the stage was being MC'd by a Right Rev. bear testament to the community nature of this festival that started out many years ago as a free experience in the packed streets of Hitchin. Anyway, I sat. On to the stage came BURP (Berkhamstead Ukelele Random Players). I didn't sit for long. It was that same one joke that The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain do. A group of model airplane enthusiasts and librarians with spiky red hair get up and give you Another One Bites The Dust with excrutiating vocal harmonies. This was their opener, then on to The Cure's Friday I'm in Love. I've no idea what followed that. Sometimes local produce is not always the freshest.
There was a tiny stage, The Arcadeclectic, barely bigger than a seven and a half ton truck. Here, a couple of years ago I had tried to watch Little Axe in the pissing rain whilst champing at the bit to go and see C.W. Stoneking elsewhere. I cut and run on Little Axe. I feel ashamed. But I digress. The Arcadeclectic is set amongst trees, down by the river. Its smallness, coupled with the types of acts it tends to have on, sort of tempt me at least into believing I'm in the American Deep South at a little medicine show. Fanciful I know but it helps my mood along. Los Chicas Muertas, much more white british than their name implies, were plying their trade, a mix of country, blues, hillbilly, and murder ballads. All good stuff, but eventually I again cut and ran to see The London Afrobeat Collective.
The LAC too were, to my surprise, a predominantly white band. They sounded pretty fluid, had plenty good licks,and all the right moves, and a lot of people were dancing. I'd like to see them in a smaller,funkier space. Sometimes the open air blows away some of the vital sparks.
I often find myself wondering not if the band has performed well enough for me, but have I performed well enough for them? Have I played my part? Joined in and danced? Responded to the endless questioning of "Are you having a good time?" Have I clapped long enough with my hands in the air? The LAC are a party band and there was a bit of a party going on at the front of the stage. I continued to lurch around as best a man with a wooden leg can but I do get a bit pissed of with the MC's constant exhortation to "make some more noise, Hitchin."
As we walked around the site we became aware of the large number of kids in attendance;Babes and toddlers aplenty but also gaggles of teens and twenties and pre-teens. Jane observed that as this was essentially two one day events with no camping involved these were probably local kids too young yet to go to Glastonbury but dipping a toe in the festival scene here. it was great to see them enjoying all sorts of music but as we made our way up to meet a friend at the Radio One Introducing....Stage we really became aware of where the passions of these school parties mostly lay. This stage, sponsored by the BBC was promoting new young talent. I guess a lot of it was indie, nu-Soul, singer/songwriter, and hard rock. We stayed awhile amongst some very enjoyable poptastic summer sounds then left the kids to it. We had the serious business of roots music to attend to.
My wife, recovering from recent surgery, was beginning to tire and luckily she found an ex-colleague tosit and relax with whilst I took up my place front left of stage to watch Kobo Town. Calypso isn't something I've immersed myself in but as I listened to this highly entertaining crew I heard echoes of what little I knew - Mighty sparrow, Lord Kitchener, a little Louis Jordan in there too. Again it was a party and we were encouraged to jump up and down. I was still hopping around and playing my crutch guitar, this timeI noticed,alongside a young family. Mum was dancing more or less on her own while her two little girls, each with a puppy shaped balloon, laughed and jumped around with dad who was getting regularly "nipped" by Fido and Bonzo. You couldn't want for better dancing companions. It ain't cool to be cool no more.
South African pop band, Freshly Ground, were topping the bill next but my foot was now like a balloon too and it was time to head home and get the ice pack on it. I had Sunday' in the park to get through yet.