Alex Dodd
Long gone are the days when Lovelace Watkins was received here like the Beatles returning to Liverpool. When it comes to the global music circuit we’re no longer at the bottom of the hicklist, and there could be no greater affirmation of that fact than the advent of Womad, happening right here in baffling Benoni next weekend.
Ever since the news broke late last year of Peter Gabriel’s internationally-famed festival hitting local shores, the line up of music, arts and dance from around the globe has been growing more lengthy and gobsmacking by the week. Artists will be jetting in from as far afield as Tibet, Khazakstan, Argentina, China, Burundi and Japan for a festival that will go on for three marathon days from Friday February 12 to Sunday, the 14th.
Womad was started by Gabriel in 1982, and since then has travelled to 18 countries on four continents. On South Africa’s first Womad festival, Gabriel says: “Womad festivals are implicitly in celebration of tolerance and freedom of expression, also of cultural diversity; and after 17 years of festival presentation it is a privilege for Womad to find a presence within South Africa’s emerging course, at the dawn of a new millennium.”
Womad will take place on three stages throughout the three days: the Real Stage featuring major South African and international acts; the 5FM Stage featuring South Africa’s rock, pop and crossover supergroups and the Metropolitan Ruins Stage featuring the best roots and world musicians from around the globe.
Well known big names include the Hothouse Flowers, Jackson Browne and Baaba Maal, but Womad has made its name giving an airing to outstanding bands whose music stands outside the homogeneic Western circuit of fame and fortune.
Expect to be blown away by new sounds communicating the spirit of unknown territories and landscapes: people like the Terem Quartet (Russia), Yungchen Lhamo (Tibet), the Justin Valli Group (Madagascar) and the Guo Brothers (China). Then there’ll be the cream of the South African crop: Prophets of Da City, Rebecca Malope, Ringo, Ray Phiri and the African Gypsies, Boom Shaka, Fetish, Johnny Clegg and Savuka and more …
Several of Womad’s 25 international artists will be giving free workshops during the festival covering anything from “Breath, Bamboo and Chinese Music” (Guo Brothers) through to percussion and song workshops by Lo’ Jo (France).
Then there’ll be Ice Entertainment’s Cyber Tribal Dance Village starting at 10pm on Saturday night and thumping its way until the sun rises on Sunday. Dedicated to the deep bass waves of tribal funk the Ice Party will feature a progression of dub, house and trance DJs throughout the night.
One of South Africa’s most successful annual music festivals, Rustler’s Valley, will also be making its presence felt at Womad in the form of a “global party village” featuring artists like Steve Fataar, Asasi and Madala Kunene, as well as DJs like Khaya FM’s Nikki Blumenfeld spinning nightly.
South Africa’s most audacious artist, Beezy Bailey, will also be doing his thing in Benoni. Part of Bailey’s exhibition will be a self-portrait by Lee Ping Zing, his acclaimed Chinese character. This will be done to the accompaniment of his pre-recorded LPZ song and the performance will last four minutes. “Negotiations are underway to bring work done in collaboration with David Bowie with whom Bailey has painted in excess of 50 paintings in Cape Town and New York. Some of these works have been exhibited in Switzerland and London, but not as yet in South Africa,” reads Bailey’s blurb.
There’ll be a children’s village, a feast of global cuisine, a beer tent, an arts and craft market and more and more and more … Watch this space.
For more info call the Info Hotline at the Benoni Publicity Association on (083) 912-5741. Tickets for Friday cost R75; Saturday: R85; Sunday: R55 or R150 for a three-day ticket
@Flower power
Charles Leonard
Liam O Maonial of the Hothouse Flowers has lost four or five passports in the past few years. To his friends’ question whether he has an identity crisis, he chirps “who me?”. But seriously, he is at a stage where he wonders how much longer on this road. Where to now? After next weekend’s Womad show in Benoni, that will be on his mind again.
There’s need for a change. Maybe it’s time to become a painter or a writer. About 20 years ago they used to dance to soul music at parties. He knew then that he wanted to go into music – to be accepted by people, both sexually and in general. He’s got that now.
Maybe it is a good time for the band, which got its name from the title of an old jazz standard, to pack up or go back to its roots. Last year’s album, Born, was the first after a four-year break.
They had moved away from the romantic, rootsy, rust-green sound that made the band exhilarating to listen to, to something more stripped down, and sadly, almost bland.
The Irishness is largely gone. Talking about Irishness, one of the best scenes in the movie about the young Irish soul band, The Commitments, is when the manager asks his very pale and perplexed friends to say it out loud, a la James Brown: “We’re black and we’re proud.” To convince them, he asserts that the Irish are the niggers of Europe.
But now, at the end of the decade, Ireland has become the Celtic Tiger with its economy growing and growing. O Maonial feels this is dangerous: culture is being lost. “We could become another oppressive nation. Like in more capitalist countries, the government is more concerned with the rich.
“I’ve never seen so many homeless people on the street in Dublin. I still love my country, but it’s more than ever divided between rich and poor.”
For the Womad concert he promises lots of early material and traditional Irish knees-up music in his beloved Gaelic.
Says O Maonial: “I hope our music speaks for itself. I hope people will be able to recognise our identity, that we’re representing our people and their history.”