Womad: one weekend of melting-pot world music that conveniently marks the beginning of a year abroad. I'm not going to make an attempt to describe it all, because there really were hundreds of different nationalities all gathered in this site. Pancultural is perhaps the best word I can think of that gives some notion of all the Creole dinners, Panama Hats, free-Tibet bags, three Mexican food stalls at least and Ghanaian drumming mixed with chai...
Two performances brought this panculturalism to my attention as much as the clusters of multinational traders. Gogol Bordello are a gypsy-punk band from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, who seem to have accumulated members on an never-ending wine-fuelled world tour without ever running out of energy. From a distance they are insane, surrounded by a moshing swarm. But while embracing their long-standing cool, Gogol Bordello are hitched tenaciously to their authentic origin and well-arranged musical experience. Watching closely you can tell that they really know performance like the back of their hand. This is not surprising considering their relentless gigging schedule, but they really is no other way to describe them but as organised chaos. The way they move about on stage is almost a pattern in which they switch places or run into the audience. This applies to Elizabeth Sun in particualar, parading around one minute like a parapara dancer, another a clockwork drummer. While dressed like Pocahontas. Sitting on a drumbox* playing a tambourine against her hip. And she's from Glasgow.
*I've just learnt the real name for this is a cajón and originates from Peru. I thought it was recent attempt at inventing new percussion!
Their rapper is Ecuadorian and their bassist comes from Ethiopia. This hybridisation pretty much sums up their output. Music that has evolved in tandem with seeing a bit of the world and picking up new members on the way. It's all in an attempt to bring Eastern European music covertly to Americans who never realised this sort of thing existed, and doing so while retaining purposefully underlying lyrics pertaining to the absolute effort involved in transcontinental life.
I call it work, because such willingness to transfer their own music and perform is ultimately associated with resistance against its origin, the Roma people in particular. In some ways this can become all very romanticised. Especially in the context of going abroad for a year and the attempts we all might make at multicultural identity. But as Univeristy students we clearly aren't the people who produce such genuine music as that which comes from struggle. Hütz, who arrived in Vermont in 1992 as a political refugee after a long tour through the refugee camps of Eastern Europe, was initially wearing a shirt sloganed with bold print on yellow: ‘No Human Being is Illegal’, supporting rights for immigrants and refugees.
This has some more about it if you read Spanish, or a quick Google will do the job.
Dueting a Roma song with Madonna's Isla Bonita? That's brave. Who would've thought?
Rodrigo y Gabriella merit another such comparison. They are a spectacular guitar duo whose went from a cult following in small-Dublin pubs to an audience that sprawled out of the largest tent on site. They are now a Big Deal. Moving from Mexico to Dublin to find an audience for something other than thrash metal, it reminded me a bit of the strory in 'Once'. Like Markéta Irglová, Gabriella’s English accent is tinted with something very Irish and very Mexican. Something struck me about all the middle class white people watching, and their gap years, but I suppose the point is we’re trying to dissimilate into something more interesting and this effort should probably be applauded, because it makes us less likely to sit around in beige houses reading the Daily Mail like the Dursley's probably would. Hooray for having children abroad, for borrowing other people’s music and learning strange instruments!
