WOMAD 2

A group of adolescents has pitched very close to our tent. They got back from Molly's Bar at 2am and proceeded to talk, get high, argue and be loudly offensive about anyone not like them... Asking them to talk more quietly worked for about ten minutes. Turns out we were wrong about pitching so close to Molly's Bar but it's not the music that's the problem. It feels like too much work to take down our tent and repitch elsewhere. Tired sigh.
   
I'm not interested in self-aggrandising music stars but Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze), who was talking in the Words tent about songwriting this morning, is almost my age and went to the same secondary school as me (that's no claim to fame - so did one of Stephen Lawrence's murderers) so I thought I'd sit in the back row for ten minutes then escape. Wow - he's a good storyteller! And not remotely pompous. He told us some pretty harrowing things about his upbringing in an unsensational and unself-pitying way and how the guitar he got when he was 7 was his refuge. I really enjoyed the way he illustrated his life in music by playing and singing songs that had influenced him or that he had written at that time. I did not begin to try to escape. Instead I carved out a little space for Secondborn to put her stool and join me.

Firstborn is here teaching children beatboxing and a friend of his, Ben, who I've known for a long time, is teaching violin. I asked how he does that and he invited me to come and watch. As I arrived he put a fiddle in my hands and got me to join in. I was fascinated to see how he got children learning but the consequence was that I missed a set I really wanted to hear... There is too much going on!

Mokoomba from Zimbabwe were so glorious I'm linking to them twice.
I enjoyed the first 45 minutes of Alicia Edelweiss, after which her archness outweighed the zany fun.
A performance under the Moon of Jason Singh's music (see yesterday) with Georgie Pope on harp was unmissable. I've never much enjoyed electronic music but this sounds like a way in. Midway through it started to pelt and while the audience dug round in bags for waterproofs the production team deftly moved a gazebo over the electronics. But not over the harp! You what?!

I guess a harp can't electrocute you...*

I accompanied Secondborn back to her adolescence with Bombay Bicycle Club on the main stage after which I was too tired to stay up for Montparnasse Musique, the band from Kinshasa that I'd wanted to hear at midnight. I'm listening to them as I write and feeling very wistful that I missed them live.

At least from a tent so near the main stage I could drift to sleep to gentle sarod music from Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash.


*Turned out Georgie Pope is a friend of Ben's. He introduced us on Saturday and I told her how worried I was about her harp. She reassured me that she was under the Moon and most of the rain runs to its 'south' pole and was dripping off onto the gazebo.


Extra: lots of blue - this is a lovely site