Womad festival review

Womad festival

How exciting to visit Womad in its new home of Charlton Park, but how disheartening it was to wake up every morning to see my lovely yellow tent being turned into a mud-splattered brown one! Despite my own very lovely abode becoming waterlogged and a surface for the latest designs in mud graffiti, I pressed on and made the most out of a very wet Womad!

As ever the line up was unbeatable with the likes of Lila Downs, Asian Dub Foundation and good ol’ Pete entertaining us on the main stage, and the wonders that are Daby Toure, Seth Lakeman and the Cullum Brothers- there was something there for everyone! And tucked away in the top end of the site was the beautiful haven known as the Arboretum- often announced over the radio using all manner of pronunciations! If you were lucky enough to visit it whilst there was still grass there and when the sun was shining- your Womad experience would have been complete and confirmed for next year!

The BBC Radio 3 stage was host to some wonderful musicians from the far reaches of Sami land to the depths of Africa and India- we were lulled into our sleeping bags by the beautiful vocals of Mari Boine and whipped into a frenzy by the exuberant Spanish outfit La Xula! Artist talks took place in this part of the festival, as did some tasty cookery demonstrations that my friend will vouch for!

No Womad experience should be without a visit to the excellent Carter’s Steam Fair- and always a necessary activity- going on the fastest ride you can find just after breakfast!! Or beating your friend to a pulp on the dodgems!

And finally I come to our wonderful stewards, who braved all the elements to stoically go where no steward has gone before - this year we became tree wardens amongst other roles and looked after the festival goers to the best of our abilities and always in good humour! In the words of the lovely Johnny Kalsi of the Dhol Foundation- a “BIG THANK YOU” to the Oxfam stewards- who got the biggest cheer from the audience at the main stage on the Sunday afternoon!

HOORAY to all of us and well done! And a fitting end to a rather manic weekend was the oooh’s and ahhh’s heard coming out of the Oxbox at midnight on the Sunday evening- to what I am referring was the bright fireworks that rendered the radio silent for a few heart-stopping moments and had us all craning our heads to the skies, hoping and praying that next year’s Womad will be as great as this year’s!!

Abi Norman