Jarrod and I decided to go to this after reading about it while sitting in a training session and, a couple of days and a bit of haphazard 'planning' later, we rolled up to the Bowl with Keith, Penny, and a friend of Jarrod's named Alice to stake out our spot on the grass. Actually, it's just as well that we got there early; I read in the newspaper today that about 13,000 people were there and more turned away after the venue reached capacity (it was part of this 'Festival Melbourne 2006' that's attached to the Commonwealth Games). There was a really nice vibe to proceedings - it was relaxed and friendly, and everyone seemed to be there to have a good time and enjoy the music and the outdoor surroundings - and the music was ace. As far as I can remember, it went something like this:
The Kusun Ensemble from Ghana were first, and made an excellent show-starter. They appeared dancing in a line through the seated area, playing their instruments and singing as they went, and once they got on stage put on a great show - very much the kind of thing that most people immediately think of when they think about cross-over African music, warm and rhythmic, and complete with chants, clapping and costumes. The highlight, though, was the dancers, who first appeared en masse, then took it in turns at the front of stage.
I think that Talvin Singh - the main drawcard for us - was next. Anyway, whenever he was, he did a set entirely on the tabla (ie, without the electronics), and it was good and had the crowd hanging on every sproing, but it felt all too short.
Then Scrap Arts Music, a kinetic Canadian collective raucously creating music out of salvaged and recycled urban scrap. Not exactly subtle, but I thought they were good (Jarrod not entirely sold, his musical snob side coming out, I think).
Evelyn Glennie from Scotland seemed to be the biggest name on the bill, but she didn't leave that much of an impression on me - I suppose that her set was less obviously dynamic and loud than some of the others...I don't know, maybe more one for the percussion purists? Also, by this time, we were all freezing on the grass and things were beginning to get a little surreal, especially with the mood lighting that was happening.
Liam Teague hails from Trinidad & Tobago and plays an interesting instrument called the steelpan which, he told the audience, is not only the national instrument but also is regarded as the youngest acoustic instrument to have been invented in the twentieth century; the mc had earlier told us that Teague has been described as, variously, the Ricky Martin, Willie Nelson and Paganini of the steelpan (three analogues which seem more or less mutually exclusive to me, but anyway...). What he served up was a set of dreamy, chiming, rather The Moon and the Melodies-esque music - very nice...in his hands, the steelpan has a kind of Moog-y, vibraphone-y sound and it was all rather pretty and drifty (I wasn't paying close attention, but it settled gently around me).
Nexus are another Canadian five-piece, but made up of five rather staid looking middle-aged men (one of them's a bit of a Donald Sutherland). On the night, they were all dressed in dark suits and playing first ragtime xylophones then old-fashioned marching-band drums - one of my favourites (especially the xylophone piece).
The Dhol Foundation got a big reaction from the crowd, and I could see why once they started playing. They have a huge sound, beating these massive drums while jumping around all over the stage - plus, they have an electric guitar and standard drumkit to drive things forward. Especially good was the one described by the madcap turbaned frontman as their 'crazy Indian Irish Celtic song', underpinned by fiddle. This was the point when people got up and started dancing.
For mine, the best act of the night was the Renegades Steel Orchestra. Hailing from Trinidad & Tobago, they're a large (about 15 members, I think), brightly-clothed (ie, hot pinks, greens and oranges) steel band collective who make music too joyful and uplifting to resist (and they provided an extended figurative cigarette lighters in the air moment with a rapturous version of "No Woman, No Cry", getting the crowd to sing along) - they're the one act whose recorded stuff I might be inspired to go looking for.
Finally, Synergy, an Australian outfit, and something of an anti-climax (though their cause wasn't helped by the evening cold - it was getting past 11 by now - and the discomfort of having been sitting down for so long). I think they would've been quite good, and would probably served as a nice come down from the energy of the preceding acts, but by then I'd basically lost all feeling in my extremities and really was just waiting for it to be over.
Finale was a piece composed by Australian composer Graeme Leak which involved getting all of the performers up on stage at once to bang and clatter their way through a sprawling (but, all things considered, relatively restrained) suite, taking it in turns to come to prominence from out of the vastness of sound, which brought things to a suitable close. (Leak also composed and conducted three perplexingly minimalistic and difficult to hear - and grasp - pieces which were performed by Australian percussion students (who also appeared on stage with some of the acts) at intervals, causing me to wonder if he was having many existential moments up there with his baton that night.) So altogether, the considerable discomfort occasioned by not having prepared adequately for the night chill notwithstanding, a tops affair.
