Review: WOMADELAIDE 2022 - DAY 3 at Botanic Park

Reviewed by Ray Smith, Sunday 13th March 2022.

Day 3 of WOMADelaide began with an hour of yoga. Well, I imagine it did for a number of people but, for me, it was with Parvyn on Stage 7. I had intended on passing Stage 7 after entering the site from Frome Road, and pushing on to stage 3 to see the Balkan Ethno Orchestra, but stage 7 was so close, and I really wanted to hear her and her band again.

ARIA-nominated L-FRESH The LION was on the Foundation Stage, but Rap tends to leave me cold, and I had already had a very healthy dose of Punjabi Fusion this afternoon, so I pushed on to Stage 3 to wait for Reb Fountain to begin.

I had missed the Friday performance on Stage 7, which was Reb and her band's first performance in Australia, so I was about to hear their second Australian show. A San Francisco born New Zealander, Fountain's sound is perhaps more pop than folk orientated, but it does not exhibit the simplistic, commercial elements that that simple genre brings to mind, but is rather grittier and much more lyrically sophisticated. Perhaps that is what the genre 'Alt-Folk' is supposed to represent, but I find such contrived labelling to be so open-ended as to be meaningless. There were certainly elements of contemporary folk in her offerings, but the songs, and the way that they were arranged, were far more immediate and direct than might be expected of American folk music. I found her show to be quite captivating, particularly the warmth of her voice and the sheer depth of her songwriting. It was not a performance that one could simply walk away from. I stayed for the whole set.

The 23 piece ensemble, YID, filled the Foundation Stage, quite literally, and presented an extraordinary set of Klezmer-based songs with rich harmonies, and melodies that were so familiar to anyone who has enjoyed Jewish dance music, but with a new twist. This seemed to me to be a jazz Big Band that Glenn Miller would have instantly recognised, albeit with a different instrumental makeup, but I imagine that he would have initially worn a confused frown, because they were not playing American Jazz, they were playing some sort of Klezmer Jazz, and it was brilliant. The audience danced and danced some more as this outstanding outfit regaled them with solid, almost tribal beats, wild improvised solos, and tightly packed choral harmonies, all the while maintaining the soulful sound of a traditional Klezmer band.

Farhan Shah & Sufi-Oz were due to play on Stage 7, and it is a bit of a walk from the Foundation Stage, so I had to leave the Klezmer Dance Party a little early in order to secure a good vantage point.

To give the reader a little perspective on the size of this venue, it is around 34 hectares in area, which is roughly 84 acres in the old measurements, and approximately 800 metres in a straight line from Stage 3 to Frome Park. There are, of course, no straight lines to travel at WOMADelaide as there are small obstacles such as the Global Village, the KidZone, marquees housing everything from Saint John's Ambulance Paramedics to ABC broadcasters, and record and other merchandise retailers, and trees. Lots and lots of trees.

It was during one of these protracted strolls yesterday, that I met an old friend who is a member of Sufi-Oz, the musicians playing for Farhan Shah, and en route we stumbled upon other members of the ensemble and members of their families. It was an ambush. I was invited to join them for lunch and spent a very enjoyable hour sitting in the shade of the trees bordering the Global Village with these wonderful young musicians. I was introduced to Shiva the harmonium player, and then Shiva the vocalist, by Shiva the tabla player. "We are Shivas Regal" he proclaimed, much to everyone's delight, including my own, as these playful and mischievous young men laughed and joked and offered me every hospitality. Today I am going to watch them play some of the most serious and sacred music ever written.

Farhan Shah is an Adelaide based composer and Qawwali singer and brings together the Sufi traditional music of Pakistan and the contemporary music scene of Karachi. I was introduced to Qawwali singing at WOMADelaide in 1993 by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, widely known as The Voice of God, and the programme that he and his musicians offered left a permanent mark on my mind and my heart. I was very much looking forward to hearing Shah's take on it for, though a very formal genre, this music demands improvisation, and it is the central singer who decides where the music should go and when.

The band that Shah has assembled around himself is as diverse as it is talented. Made up of individuals from Syrian, French, Japanese, Irish, and Fijian heritage, they are all bound together by a love of the ancient traditions of Sufi music and are of an extraordinarily high musical standard, and it is through these personalities and their unique talents that Shah is free to move the music into otherwise impossible fusions.

The performance itself was exhilarating, and deliberately and consciously inclusive, as the seated audience was led into the call and response structure that is so inherent in Qawwali singing. Shah would teach us the words and melody of a response, allowing us a number of rehearsals, as the band continued the underlying pulse and melodic structure, before calling the full force of the musicians back with the flick of a hand, and we found ourselves totally immersed in the song and, for a brief moment, a part of a joyous, empowering ritual that stretches back over 800 years.

Farhan Shah invoked the name of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and spoke of the honour that he felt to be singing these songs at the very event that The Voice of God had sung them too. The songs were the same, but the styles of these two great Qawwali singers were quite different. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's performances were very traditional, and his players were very traditional, and while the performances were mind-blowingly good, I felt very much as an observer allowed to watch and listen but kept at arm's length. Farhan Shah's performance was also traditional, but with extra elements, because his players were not all traditional, and while this performance was also mind-blowingly good, I felt very much included and welcomed, much as I had been by the Shivas Regal the day before. This performance will also leave a permanent mark on my mind and heart, or rather it will add to ones already there from that show in 1993, and what it will add is a feeling of inclusion and welcome. A very generous gift.

A few metres away, in a straight line, is the Frome Park Pavilion, so it was a short walk, made slightly longer by lots of trees, to find myself a front-row seat to see ZÖJ. ZÖJ, which means couple in Farsi, are Gelareh Pour and Brian O'Dwyer, a duo based in Ballarat who have a unique style both in their performances and in their very approach to live music. O'Dwyer is like no other percussionist I have ever seen, he doesn't so much hit the drums as massage them, in almost constant gentle movements, flicking from one part of the kit to another, to create a subtle, shifting and unobtrusive audioscape of extraordinary colour. He was hypnotic to watch.

Galareh Pour plays bowed Persian instruments and interprets poetry in Farsi, overlaying her beautiful voice and instruments through a looping station to create long, ethereal chordal structures that hang in the air like mist. The duo improvises virtually everything on stage, Pour referencing some written notes of poetry that she will weave into the next piece, O'Dwyer, eyes closed, painting the landscape for the poem to live in, ready to add or remove mountains should the poet demand it, or to gently change the course of a river should Pour wish to swim that way. Pour's voice would purr and weep, in looped layers of great fragility yet strong enough to support her impassioned outpouring of Farsi verse that would rise and fall, ebb and flow like an ancient tide on a forgotten shore. It was a collaboration of such intimacy and trust, and so very much in the moment that I was in awe if them. It was a meditation, a shared dream, an unhurried journey with loved companions with no destination intended or needed. It was timeless.