WOMADelaide

WOMADelaide is held in Adelaide's Botanic Park, the ground also called Tainmuntilla. Matt Eygenraam walks the Friday of 8 March 2024 in Hi Fi Way, the thirty-second year of the gathering. The official page says that, across the four days, attendance approached 98,000. The heat pressed in: The Guardian notes 39.9 degrees on Saturday, according to the Advertiser, and counts about 10,000 grey-headed flying foxes in the canopy. An earlier edition, with Florence and the Machine, Bon Iver and The Proclaimers, had filled the paths and stretched the toilet queues. ABC writes that this time the park felt like the gathering again. The Sydney Morning Herald notes that one stage closed while the sun was high, close to 40 degrees. The official page stays as it is.

DakhaBrakha, the Ukrainian quartet, opens the Foundation Stage. Percussion together, cello, keyboards and piano accordion, and the crowd is on its feet early, in front of political images. At Frome Park, Folk Bitch Trio: Gracie Sinclair, Jeanie Pilkington and Heide Peverelle, plus three more musicians. Hi Fi Way notes a likeness to First Aid Kit and to Laura Marling. On Stage 2, Mauskovic Dance Band, from Amsterdam, mixes Afro-Caribbean rhythms and cumbia. There is a slap-bass solo, synths, and a cowbell that does not stop, from the start to the end. The piece writes that the dancing could run on until morning.

At Moreton Bay, Dean Brady, from Brisbane, with his ensemble, in an elegant mix of soul. He covers Maxwell's Ascension, and the older listeners get a memory of the nineties. His song Falling pulls shouts from the front row. It is hot and he loses his shirt. The shout may or may not land with the shirt. Then, on the Foundation stage, Dubioza Kolektiv lifts the pulse: seven from Bosnia in yellow and black baseball kit. Almir Hasanbegović and Adis Zvekić sing. The set carries Free.Mp3, USA and Kazu, with electronic beats, sax solos and heavy percussion. The crowd sits in the palm of their hand. As the sun sets, the flying foxes make their own circle above the stage.

Erin Buku, from Adelaide, comes onto Frome Park with a muted trumpet, flute, Roland keys, guitar, bass and fragile beats. From her album Self Titled she sings The Way and Only One Me. The Budos Band, eight from Staten Island, open with the riff of Old Engine Oil. Chicago Falcon, Up From the South and Black Venom follow, the last of those dedicated to the snakes of Australia. Hi Fi Way hears them like the chase in a nineteen-seventies police film. Guitar is Thomas Brenneck, with riffs in the manner of Zeppelin and solos in the manner of Hendrix. Drums are Robert Lombardo, called Bobby. The organ is a Roland VK-7, and there are congas.

In the same tent, DJ Debmaster's bass carries a long way. The tent is sweltering, heads nod and arms wave, while MC Yallah, from Kenya and Uganda, raps, mixing languages of East Africa with English, smooth and intense at once. Corinne Bailey Rae, on the Foundation stage, is nearly twenty years into her career. From the album Black Rainbows she sings New York Transit Queen and Earthlings. Put Your Records On, from 2006, joins friends and strangers, swaying and singing. Some children sleep on the grass. At Stage 7, DJ Koco, Shimokita, closes that first night on seven-inch vinyl alone: hip hop, eighties dance and disco.

ABC, on 12 March, follows the rest of the weekend. Son Rompe Pera, from Mexico, brings Dubioza Kolektiv out for a rowdy take on I Fought the Law. Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 do not miss a beat. The piece puts him near James Brown and Grace Jones, and Pongo joins the last song of that set. The Good Ones, Adrian Kazigira and Janvier Havugimana, farmers from Rwanda, sing in Australia for the first time. Havugimana lost, in the genocide of 1994, a brother who had taught them to play. The first time they left Rwanda was in 2014, called to the gathering in the United Kingdom. Ian Brennan, their producer, tells the crowd they may not realise how special it is, and that it matters that it keep going. Gilberto Gil, aged 81, sounds whole on a farewell tour. Arooj Aftab says she arrives hungover. ABC writes that you cannot tell, and she mixes jazz with forms from South Asia. Ziggy Marley closes the gathering. There are Palestinian flags and police. Australian Friends of Palestine had asked people not to go, because he signed a letter. ABC writes that the protest stays peaceful and that the music covers it if you are not close. The Sydney Morning Herald describes Gratte Ciel on ten-metre poles, Handspring elephants and Elephants Laugh in water tanks. Sharon Shannon gets a few people dancing. Angélique Kidjo leaves a line between songs: there is still a lot of work to do.