More Womad!
Okay, so yesterday was a huge day. *grin*
We began getting in pretty much as it started and watching the awesome Taikoz drumming of "Eitetsu Hayashi". We were sitting in full sun, but happy because it was awesome. Ran into Kim (mavisgrizltits) and Juzzy briefly near the end. These guys were amazing.
Next act we saw was "DOCH" who were dance city. We danced like crazy and had a ball. It was *really* hot. My sunblock (Yes, Bruce, I wore SUNBLOCK!) kept dripping into my eyes with my sweat. Nasty. The TV crew were filming this really hot girl just near us (Who Jason tells me was on the news last night) and then they filmed me (well, my boobs) for a bit. Apparently I didn't end up on TV though. Suck!
But what was really fun was when I realised I was heading for a meltdown. Whoops! I partied too hard. Ange go splat now. (This was about 1:45pm)I ran off by myself just near the end of the set heading for the toilets and then proceeded to spend the next hour almost passing out, sweating madly and being very nauseous as I got rid of every last drop of water in my body. At one point I made myself wander off to get a drink (upon which I had to bolt back to the toilet), but in my delirium I thought that powerade would be a good way of rehydrating myself quicker. I was seriously trying to work out how I would get to the hopsital, when I remembered the first aid tent (yay delirium!). I had to *find* said first aid tent, but I knew it would be closer than hospital. By the time I had the energy to get myself to the first aid tent I was feeling lots better anyway. The first aid guy told me off for drinking powerade and pointed out that I was an idiot for getting dehydrated and there was nothing he could do. So I tried to find the others again. Managed to find Nat not too long after. So, either way, that was a miserable way to spend an hour and a half. For the rest of the day I was desperately trying to rehydrate. Whenever I didn't have a sip of water someone would hit me and remind me to drink. I still didn't feel any good until about 6pm. Even when I did feel okay I was conscious not to dance hard enough to sweat just in case. :( *sigh*
So, next act I saw was the "Golden Pride Children's Choir" who were really cute. Apparently they had a great time at Womad dancing to other acts and stuff. We caught up with Benno (jeamland), Claire and Sarah here.
Then off to see "La Bottine Souriante" do a workshop.. but it wasn't really workshoppy. It was more of a small show with only three members of the band and they got you to sing along a bit. It was still really cool. We actually got to see their feet moving, which we didn't really see enough of on Friday night. Saw Chris Loader from afar.
Then Nat and I bolted to see "Renegades Steel Orchestra" who were cool to begin with.. but we left when we realised they hadn't really gripped us.. just in time too since they started to do really bad covers. We could unfortunately still hear them while we ate dinner.
While hunting dinner we found Rachael and her mum Lorraine. Had dinner with them and then kidnapped Rachael for the next few hours. Robin and Michael arrived soon after and we all watched "Musafir Gypsies of Rajasthan" from the Ange-safe vantage point of "right up the back in the shade". Ran into Liz for a split second. Music was cool, but were mainly chatting and stuff all the way through it. Saw Lou, Mark, & Margit from afar.
Then time for more dancey stuff with "Wicked Aura Batucada". These guys were hot. They do Brazilian (How many is a Brazilian?) and African style beats.. but they're all from Singapore. Their only problem was that every time they got the audience really worked up they'd then stop for a bit and teach us something to sing. It slowed everyone down too much. Not that I was allowed to really dance.. but MORE DANCING! Ran into Catherine Campbell for two seconds and saw Molly Kendall from afar. Dammit, *really* wanted to say hi.
Now, since we'd seen "La Bottine Souriante" twice now.. Nat, Rob and I decided to head to see "Dr L Subramaniam" who does funky indian stuff on violin. He's quite mad, obviously. The set was very mellow but awesome to listen to. A quick sms to Bruce and I find out his entropy field has followed him to Melbourne (wonders what he broke) and that he now knows what I mean by "Salmon Time". Heh :P (Okay, and none of you will understand that unless you know Ben's family)
Then we finally noticed Benno had been trying to get hold of us because Claire and Sarah had left him ages ago. Met up with him at "Scrap Arts Music". These guys were possibly the best performers I have ever seen! For starters, they're using bits of scrap metal as instruments. They are well designed to also be very visually attractive. Then they move the instruments all about the stage and choreograph every second of the act. There were people bouncing all over the stage hitting drums left right and centre. They had SO much energy it hurt. And while running around like mad things and hitting drums all over the place they actually sounded rhythmically brilliant. They had us all completely dumbstruck. So amazing.
Ran into Karen Lewis soon after that act and had a very quick dribble about how cool Scrap Arts were. Then got to see Kerry (who I actually hadn't seen since last Womad) and she got to scare me (apparently not for the first time) by telling me that she knows Karen from TAFE. Bloody Adelaide.
We decided to head for chai (and people finally allowed me to drink something that wasn't water here) and stake out a spot for Talvin Singh rather than watching "Kanda Bongo Man". We could hear the bongo man from the next stage anyway. I'm pretty sure none of us heard any bongos though. Maybe they were earlier in the set. Benno was feeling pretty ripped off though. Saw Tonja and Ali from afar.
Talvin Singh was funny. He's a fusion DJ melding traditional indian with drum and bass, breaks and a little jungle. Cool concept. Strange gig. The indian melds were cool when he tried, but as a DJ he kind of sucked. He never really got the crowd worked up properly.. and whenever he did he got sloppy and people lost the beat. It was weird. What was even more weird was that he had NO stage presence (I *have* seen DJ's that do have stage presence) and yet the entire crowd was squished up together staring at the stage changing colour every now and then. You know on The Simpsons when the grungey kids are dancing to Sonic Youth? Yeah, well that was this crowd. All squished up together sort of swaying their legs and shoulders a bit. The beach ball was a redeeming feature.. until it fell on my head when a girl asked me the time. :) We ended up giving up on the act.. which was a huge let down after staking out a spot for so long. Bah. We could hear it all the way back to the car anyway and it was no real huge loss.
Still feeling kind of seedy today which shits me. I don't want to spend all day today being gentle on myself too. Gnargh! And don't go presuming I drank too much. I didn't touch a drop of alcohol yesterday and I only had two ciders the day before. It's just serious dehydration.
Still covered in sunblock and sweat.. although I did wash the mud off my feet before falling asleep last night.
Still haven't run into Matt (matt_auc). WTF?!?!
We began getting in pretty much as it started and watching the awesome Taikoz drumming of "Eitetsu Hayashi". We were sitting in full sun, but happy because it was awesome. Ran into Kim (mavisgrizltits) and Juzzy briefly near the end. These guys were amazing.
Next act we saw was "DOCH" who were dance city. We danced like crazy and had a ball. It was *really* hot. My sunblock (Yes, Bruce, I wore SUNBLOCK!) kept dripping into my eyes with my sweat. Nasty. The TV crew were filming this really hot girl just near us (Who Jason tells me was on the news last night) and then they filmed me (well, my boobs) for a bit. Apparently I didn't end up on TV though. Suck!
But what was really fun was when I realised I was heading for a meltdown. Whoops! I partied too hard. Ange go splat now. (This was about 1:45pm)I ran off by myself just near the end of the set heading for the toilets and then proceeded to spend the next hour almost passing out, sweating madly and being very nauseous as I got rid of every last drop of water in my body. At one point I made myself wander off to get a drink (upon which I had to bolt back to the toilet), but in my delirium I thought that powerade would be a good way of rehydrating myself quicker. I was seriously trying to work out how I would get to the hopsital, when I remembered the first aid tent (yay delirium!). I had to *find* said first aid tent, but I knew it would be closer than hospital. By the time I had the energy to get myself to the first aid tent I was feeling lots better anyway. The first aid guy told me off for drinking powerade and pointed out that I was an idiot for getting dehydrated and there was nothing he could do. So I tried to find the others again. Managed to find Nat not too long after. So, either way, that was a miserable way to spend an hour and a half. For the rest of the day I was desperately trying to rehydrate. Whenever I didn't have a sip of water someone would hit me and remind me to drink. I still didn't feel any good until about 6pm. Even when I did feel okay I was conscious not to dance hard enough to sweat just in case. :( *sigh*
So, next act I saw was the "Golden Pride Children's Choir" who were really cute. Apparently they had a great time at Womad dancing to other acts and stuff. We caught up with Benno (jeamland), Claire and Sarah here.
Then off to see "La Bottine Souriante" do a workshop.. but it wasn't really workshoppy. It was more of a small show with only three members of the band and they got you to sing along a bit. It was still really cool. We actually got to see their feet moving, which we didn't really see enough of on Friday night. Saw Chris Loader from afar.
Then Nat and I bolted to see "Renegades Steel Orchestra" who were cool to begin with.. but we left when we realised they hadn't really gripped us.. just in time too since they started to do really bad covers. We could unfortunately still hear them while we ate dinner.
While hunting dinner we found Rachael and her mum Lorraine. Had dinner with them and then kidnapped Rachael for the next few hours. Robin and Michael arrived soon after and we all watched "Musafir Gypsies of Rajasthan" from the Ange-safe vantage point of "right up the back in the shade". Ran into Liz for a split second. Music was cool, but were mainly chatting and stuff all the way through it. Saw Lou, Mark, & Margit from afar.
Then time for more dancey stuff with "Wicked Aura Batucada". These guys were hot. They do Brazilian (How many is a Brazilian?) and African style beats.. but they're all from Singapore. Their only problem was that every time they got the audience really worked up they'd then stop for a bit and teach us something to sing. It slowed everyone down too much. Not that I was allowed to really dance.. but MORE DANCING! Ran into Catherine Campbell for two seconds and saw Molly Kendall from afar. Dammit, *really* wanted to say hi.
Now, since we'd seen "La Bottine Souriante" twice now.. Nat, Rob and I decided to head to see "Dr L Subramaniam" who does funky indian stuff on violin. He's quite mad, obviously. The set was very mellow but awesome to listen to. A quick sms to Bruce and I find out his entropy field has followed him to Melbourne (wonders what he broke) and that he now knows what I mean by "Salmon Time". Heh :P (Okay, and none of you will understand that unless you know Ben's family)
Then we finally noticed Benno had been trying to get hold of us because Claire and Sarah had left him ages ago. Met up with him at "Scrap Arts Music". These guys were possibly the best performers I have ever seen! For starters, they're using bits of scrap metal as instruments. They are well designed to also be very visually attractive. Then they move the instruments all about the stage and choreograph every second of the act. There were people bouncing all over the stage hitting drums left right and centre. They had SO much energy it hurt. And while running around like mad things and hitting drums all over the place they actually sounded rhythmically brilliant. They had us all completely dumbstruck. So amazing.
Ran into Karen Lewis soon after that act and had a very quick dribble about how cool Scrap Arts were. Then got to see Kerry (who I actually hadn't seen since last Womad) and she got to scare me (apparently not for the first time) by telling me that she knows Karen from TAFE. Bloody Adelaide.
We decided to head for chai (and people finally allowed me to drink something that wasn't water here) and stake out a spot for Talvin Singh rather than watching "Kanda Bongo Man". We could hear the bongo man from the next stage anyway. I'm pretty sure none of us heard any bongos though. Maybe they were earlier in the set. Benno was feeling pretty ripped off though. Saw Tonja and Ali from afar.
Talvin Singh was funny. He's a fusion DJ melding traditional indian with drum and bass, breaks and a little jungle. Cool concept. Strange gig. The indian melds were cool when he tried, but as a DJ he kind of sucked. He never really got the crowd worked up properly.. and whenever he did he got sloppy and people lost the beat. It was weird. What was even more weird was that he had NO stage presence (I *have* seen DJ's that do have stage presence) and yet the entire crowd was squished up together staring at the stage changing colour every now and then. You know on The Simpsons when the grungey kids are dancing to Sonic Youth? Yeah, well that was this crowd. All squished up together sort of swaying their legs and shoulders a bit. The beach ball was a redeeming feature.. until it fell on my head when a girl asked me the time. :) We ended up giving up on the act.. which was a huge let down after staking out a spot for so long. Bah. We could hear it all the way back to the car anyway and it was no real huge loss.
Still feeling kind of seedy today which shits me. I don't want to spend all day today being gentle on myself too. Gnargh! And don't go presuming I drank too much. I didn't touch a drop of alcohol yesterday and I only had two ciders the day before. It's just serious dehydration.
Still covered in sunblock and sweat.. although I did wash the mud off my feet before falling asleep last night.
Still haven't run into Matt (matt_auc). WTF?!?!