WOMAD 3

In daylight yesterday my conversation with one of the noisy adolescents was perfectly reasonable. He apologised for the noise and said they'd try to be quieter. It was different in the small dark hours when they asked why we'd camped there if we wanted things quiet. Fair question. My experience here following that at Africa Oyé makes me wonder about the impact on youngsters of having been incarcerated by COVID.

Highlights:
Orchestra Qawwali with Rushil Ranjan and Abi Sampa - sufi music with a western-style orchestra. A real surprise and very moving.
The Welsh-Colombian collaboration between Catrin Finch and Cimarrón.
47Soul. 1947. The British did that. Unforgivable.

And The Scribes on Molly's stage. At Firstborn's band's performance at WOMAD four years ago I felt like I would burst. I was gutted when they split up six months later. Since then he's performed solo and ad hoc with other Bristol bands and tonight he was performing with The Scribes. He spotted me down by the rail before they started and came to offer me a back-stage pass. Stupidly I refused, since I had as a good a vantage point as any, but when I wanted to join the band backstage afterwards I had to talk myself in. I knew one member of the band already but it was good to meet the others. And the front-man's dad. I just love the next generation's acceptance of their parents.