July 24th-27th, 2014
An annual ritual for Sid and Sonia is to go to the Womad Festival. Womad stands for “World of Music, Arts and Dance” and was founded by Peter Gabriel in 1980. It is held in the UK and also in Australia, New Zealand, Spain and a few other places. It’s a medium sized festival with about 25,000 attendees typically but it attracts a bit more of a family crowd compared to a Glastonbury. I’d never been to a four day music festival before so I was looking forward to the experience.
Last year, little one year old Amelie enjoyed her first Womad and she wasn’t going to miss her second. So it was Sid, Son, Amelie and me but it was going to require two cars to get us there due to the obscene amount of camping and festival gear that would be deemed necessary to take. The drive was only about two hours north from Weymouth to the estate at Charlton Park. The estate has been owned by the Earls of Suffolk for over 400 years. The main estate building was converted into flats in the early 1970s and the current earl, the 21st Earl of Suffolk Michael Howard and his wife live in an out building. The Earl’s haven’t had a string of luck for a while as Howard’s father died while trying to defuse a bomb during WWII and his grandfather was killed by shrapnel piercing his heart while commanding his artillery battery in WWI. For Howard’s sake, let’s hope that there isn’t a WWIII!
In anticipation of the big event, Sid and I tried to listen to some of the artists in the long line up to figure out which stage we wanted to be at when. It is challenging to really get a feel for a band in just a few minutes of sampling their music but one solo artist caught my attention immediately, and that was Brushy One String from Jamaica. Yes, as his name implies he plays a guitar with but one string. The video I saw was called “Chicken in the Corn” and it was rather catchy. Catchy enough that after Amelie heard me play it a few times, she was asking for me to play it numerous times in the coming weeks. However just a week or so before Womad was to start it was announced that he would not be attending due to “visa problems”. Hmm...a musician coming from Jamaica, with visa problems? I wonder what could be the problem?!?
It was a beautiful sunny Thursday morning when we set off. Sid was off in his Honda with the majority of the gear while Sonia, Amelia and I would follow. Well we didn’t follow too well to begin with. The plan was to meet in nearby Dorchester to get some petrol at Tesco’s. Sid toodled off before we’d left the driveway and in the excitement of the upcoming four days of festivaling Sonia turned the wrong direction on our first intersection. I didn’t clue in that we were headed in the wrong direction as I was just basking in the early morning sun in the front passenger seat excited about the upcoming adventure. Sonia realized her mistake 5-7 minutes later but we continued on as we could take a different road to get to Dorchester, albeit a longer one. The alternate route turned out to be a lovely drive through some quaint little hamlets. We reached the eastern side of Dorchester, a small city of about 20,000, and entered a roundabout and Sonia took an exit that lead us into a small dead end street with some flats on either side. She performed a three point turn and just as we were about to re-enter the roundabout Sid called, wondering where we were. I looked to the retaining wall to our right and the little street’s name was “Bitter End”. How appropriate...”Sid, we’re at the bitter end!” We caught up with him ten minutes later and after that followed him perfectly all the way to the festival site.
We had purchased the four day pass, versus the Friday-Sunday one which meant that we would be arriving a day earlier than many festival goers. We arrived just two hours after the gate had opened but many people had already beat us there. We pulled into a grassy field and were directed to park in a row near the edge of the field. It didn’t take long for a few of us to discover that there were stinging nettles about. Time to change out of the flip flops. We had an all-terrain pushchair for Amelie so we loaded that up with gear instead, threw on a few backpacks and then set off to the gate, but not before Sid cracked open a beer and of course I had to join. Everyone was super friendly and fairly efficient at the entrance and we lugged our stuff in to the general area where it had been decided that we would meet up with Sid and Son’s friends from Aldershot. Without much trouble we located Elli and her new boyfriend (to me at least) Johnny. They had already set up their tent and strewn about various other bits of equipment to stake out our spot for a group of a dozen people for the weekend. Sid and I headed back for another load but this time we stopped to rent a little green all terrain wagon for bringing our gear in.
We were fortunate that the weather was not your usual English summer temperament but instead sunny and in fact, almost too hot on Friday. Poor Ele got fried in the sun and experienced a minor case of sun stroke on the first day.
Always good to have an ice cream:
Let´s go Dad!
Amelie sporting her "ear defenders":
Tuckered out from the morning´s walkabout:
So is Sid:
And Sonia:
Dino-Amelie heading out for the evening:
Gigantic flowers:
Afternoon break back at camp:
Ready for another fun evening:
Off she goes...
Couldn't complain about the weather:
Sid and Son lovin' it:
Sid the Shrek emerges from his slumber:
Festivalling in style:
Can't remember who this was:
But they got everyone moving:
Sonia showing some poi skills:
The happy Womad family:
Hmmm...I think Amelie had a great time:
An annual ritual for Sid and Sonia is to go to the Womad Festival. Womad stands for “World of Music, Arts and Dance” and was founded by Peter Gabriel in 1980. It is held in the UK and also in Australia, New Zealand, Spain and a few other places. It’s a medium sized festival with about 25,000 attendees typically but it attracts a bit more of a family crowd compared to a Glastonbury. I’d never been to a four day music festival before so I was looking forward to the experience.
Last year, little one year old Amelie enjoyed her first Womad and she wasn’t going to miss her second. So it was Sid, Son, Amelie and me but it was going to require two cars to get us there due to the obscene amount of camping and festival gear that would be deemed necessary to take. The drive was only about two hours north from Weymouth to the estate at Charlton Park. The estate has been owned by the Earls of Suffolk for over 400 years. The main estate building was converted into flats in the early 1970s and the current earl, the 21st Earl of Suffolk Michael Howard and his wife live in an out building. The Earl’s haven’t had a string of luck for a while as Howard’s father died while trying to defuse a bomb during WWII and his grandfather was killed by shrapnel piercing his heart while commanding his artillery battery in WWI. For Howard’s sake, let’s hope that there isn’t a WWIII!
In anticipation of the big event, Sid and I tried to listen to some of the artists in the long line up to figure out which stage we wanted to be at when. It is challenging to really get a feel for a band in just a few minutes of sampling their music but one solo artist caught my attention immediately, and that was Brushy One String from Jamaica. Yes, as his name implies he plays a guitar with but one string. The video I saw was called “Chicken in the Corn” and it was rather catchy. Catchy enough that after Amelie heard me play it a few times, she was asking for me to play it numerous times in the coming weeks. However just a week or so before Womad was to start it was announced that he would not be attending due to “visa problems”. Hmm...a musician coming from Jamaica, with visa problems? I wonder what could be the problem?!?
It was a beautiful sunny Thursday morning when we set off. Sid was off in his Honda with the majority of the gear while Sonia, Amelia and I would follow. Well we didn’t follow too well to begin with. The plan was to meet in nearby Dorchester to get some petrol at Tesco’s. Sid toodled off before we’d left the driveway and in the excitement of the upcoming four days of festivaling Sonia turned the wrong direction on our first intersection. I didn’t clue in that we were headed in the wrong direction as I was just basking in the early morning sun in the front passenger seat excited about the upcoming adventure. Sonia realized her mistake 5-7 minutes later but we continued on as we could take a different road to get to Dorchester, albeit a longer one. The alternate route turned out to be a lovely drive through some quaint little hamlets. We reached the eastern side of Dorchester, a small city of about 20,000, and entered a roundabout and Sonia took an exit that lead us into a small dead end street with some flats on either side. She performed a three point turn and just as we were about to re-enter the roundabout Sid called, wondering where we were. I looked to the retaining wall to our right and the little street’s name was “Bitter End”. How appropriate...”Sid, we’re at the bitter end!” We caught up with him ten minutes later and after that followed him perfectly all the way to the festival site.
We had purchased the four day pass, versus the Friday-Sunday one which meant that we would be arriving a day earlier than many festival goers. We arrived just two hours after the gate had opened but many people had already beat us there. We pulled into a grassy field and were directed to park in a row near the edge of the field. It didn’t take long for a few of us to discover that there were stinging nettles about. Time to change out of the flip flops. We had an all-terrain pushchair for Amelie so we loaded that up with gear instead, threw on a few backpacks and then set off to the gate, but not before Sid cracked open a beer and of course I had to join. Everyone was super friendly and fairly efficient at the entrance and we lugged our stuff in to the general area where it had been decided that we would meet up with Sid and Son’s friends from Aldershot. Without much trouble we located Elli and her new boyfriend (to me at least) Johnny. They had already set up their tent and strewn about various other bits of equipment to stake out our spot for a group of a dozen people for the weekend. Sid and I headed back for another load but this time we stopped to rent a little green all terrain wagon for bringing our gear in.
Our camping area:
Within a few hours we were settled in. Our group was our contingency from Weymouth and a crew of Sid and Sonia’s friends from Aldershot. There was Ele and her boyfriend Johnny, another couple Holly and Stephen, the former bartender from their usual watering hole the Garden Gate Cally and her mum Debbie. Laura and her boyfriend and rounding it all off solo man Barret. I had met most of the crew four years before when I was Wandergliding through Europe and spent some time in Aldershot.
I was impressed with the enormous flat grassy land surrounding the main building. Amazing that it could accommodate 25,000 campers, but it could. On the first night there weren’t many musical acts but that was fine by us. We did go out on a walkabout to get the lay of the land.
Surveying the site:
Some kind of weird gong treatment:
Amelie checking it out:
Always good to have an ice cream:
Let´s go Dad!
Cool stools:
Dancing to drums:
Amelie sporting her "ear defenders":
Tuckered out from the morning´s walkabout:
So is Sid:
And Sonia:
Just chillin'
Dino-Amelie heading out for the evening:
Weird arsty sound thingies:
On Friday night, the first band that I saw that caught my attention was Chicha Libra, a tropical psychedelic band from New York. They got me dancing which is pretty impressive when it was only 3 in the afternoon. Later we caught some of Trombone Shorty and then one of the bigger headliners Goran Bregovic and His Wedding & Funeral Orchestra. Both were high energy and super fun to dance to. A nice way to start the weekend.
Chicha Libra:
On Saturday morning, Sid, Son, Amelie and I walked around the rather empty open arena where five different stages where interspersed amongst a multitude of food vendors from all corners of the globe and some fairground rides. Oh, and ironically the first foray into the arena the first food stand that I saw and that Sonia pointed out was “Goan Curry”...um, no, I’m not going to eat there. Amelie spotted the merry-go-round and immediately wanted to ride it. All of the rides were classic old steam powered machines and the merry-go-round wasn’t going, as there was next to no one around yet there was steam coming from the engine. Amelie asked Sid if it was smoke. Now Sid didn’t want Amelie to go on the ride this early into the weekend as she would be asking to ride it incessantly after that. Sonia had told me that Sid had never wanted to tell Amelie a lie, and that included things such as the big lie about Santa, the Easter Bunny and things like that. Well, in a split second I saw that disappear. Amelie asked “Daddy, can I go on that?” To which Sid replied “Sorry Baby, but it’s broken right now and the man has to fix it.” And with that we walked on.
The chilled croawd in the Arboretum:
Gigantic flowers:
Afternoon break back at camp:
Ready for another fun evening:
Off she goes...
Couldn't complain about the weather:
Sid and Son lovin' it:
The late night crowd at Molly's bar enjoying some swinging music:
Sunday was a mixture of relaxation and full on dancing. In the afternoon we wandered through the Arboretum, a tranquil treed area with a small stage and sporadic tents set up for massage, reiki or some other type of holistic treatment. In the early evening I fully enjoyed the sounds and energy of Arreola + Carballo, this trio from Mexico. It’s two brothers, a drummer and a bassist (with some keyboards) and a their singer/rapper. The bassist was phenomenal and they did a wicked cover of Sabotage by the Beastie Boys. The headliner for Womad was supposed to be Bobby Womack but he died just a few weeks before the festival so Sinead O’Connor was the replacement. Instead of seeing her on the main stage I opted for a funky African band called Songhou Blues and I wasn’t disappointed. I met up with the rest of the group and we caught the tail end of Public Service Broadcasting, a duo that mixes old British service announcements into cool grooves. It was a nice finish to the festival.
Shroom head Sonia:
Sid the Shrek emerges from his slumber:
Festivalling in style:
Can't remember who this was:
But they got everyone moving:
Sonia showing some poi skills:
The happy Womad family:
Hmmm...I think Amelie had a great time:
I have to say that I was super impressed with how friendly all of the concert-goers and those helping to run it were. Also the cleanliness of the whole affair. The porta-loos were pretty decent, garbage was nowhere to be seen but in the bins, there was tons of recycling...good on them, the organizers and all of the participants.
Womad, thanks a lot and I hope we see each other again.
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