Review: WOMADELAIDE 2023: DAY 3 at Botanic Park

Reviewed by Ray Smith, Sunday 12th March 2023.

Day 3 is a little cooler, and seems a bit less crowded, or am I getting used to it?

I had very much looked forward to seeing Taraf de Caliu's WOMADelaide performance on the Foundation Stage today, but I arrived a little late and a fraction blurry, probably due to a virus of some sort that nobody wants to talk about, or it is very slightly possible that it was because of my late departure from an Australian Dance Theatre after-party the night before. Either way I missed them, and was treated to a description of just how brilliant they were in the particular performance that I had just missed, as opposed to any other performance in the band's history, and that no one will ever see them as good as that ever again, from a local silversmith, musician, and old friend who hosts the Australian Landscape Jewellery stall in the Global Village. I was suitably chastened, and will see them tomorrow at 4.00pm.

I ventured down to the Zoo Stage to catch the Lacky Doley Group's show, and was surprised to see a very familiar bass player on the stage. I had never seen the band live before and I was keen to rectify that, so I parked myself next to the mixing desk to get a good view. You would think that by now I would realise that I am nowhere near tall enough to get a good view when there are a few hundred people jumping up and down between me and the stage, but I did get a good earful of extraordinary sounds before shuffling off towards the Foundation Stage to catch the end of Sampa the Great's gig.

Taste the World has moved from the outer reaches of the site and is this year more centrally placed, so I called in on my way to the main stage. It was one of those WOMADelaide spur of the moment things and I soon found myself enthralled by the music and cooking of the Dili Allstars. Their impromptu acoustic performance and kitchen dancing were absolutely brilliant to watch, and the Caldeirada de Cabrito was delicious too. Sorry Sampa.

Gratte Ciel began their nightly performance once the sky was dark enough, and while their aerial feats are spectacular to watch I was starting to get over having millions of white feathers dumped on my head from a great height every night, just as they had in 2018.

I headed off to Stage 7, where the bats might dump something else on my head, to hear a Tuareg guitar player. Mdou Moctar was not exactly what I was expecting. While the polyrhythms from drums and bass had a distinctly African feel, Moctar's guitar playing was considerably more western, moving from simple repetitive phrases to raging, searing solos that would not be out of place in an American rock band, and it was very, very loud. I'm told that the songwriter's lyrics speak of social justice, racism, sexism, and inequality, and that Moctar is "boldly reforging contemporary Saharan music", and the man can play alright, but it was just too loud for my taste.

I was too weary to make my way back to the Zoo Stage to see the Langan Band so, promising to myself that I would see them tomorrow, I headed for the exit with my ears still ringing.