the big act on sunday night was supposed to be cesaria evora
but she had fallen ill in sydney and so a no-show in adelaide
her band did a brilliant job highlighting on saturday night
but on sunday they were swapped out for a lesser stage act
sharon jones and the dap kings got promoted to the big stage
it was a little bit underwhelming really and cesaria was missed
i mean funk/r 'n' b/soul is ok but it's just not sunday night
it was just too close to corporate american music for me
i think the general feeling was much the same for the crowd
we were there out of curiousity and not much else really
polite applause at the end of the set and a quick escape for most
i wandered off to watch the tibetan monks close the festival
but unfortunately i had been beaten at my own game
and most of the crowd had settled in before the start
i got there too late and had to settle for a far-off position
that meant the connection was just not there for a change
just like quite a few other acts that i had seen but not rated highly
the beautiful girls are a quite reasonable 3 piece rock outfit
the billy cobham septet did no favours for jazz and were quite boring
victor valdez did a quite ok version of australian meets mexican mariachi
farafina were good at the time but quickly forgotten (not a good sign)
the john butler trio were loud and over-stayed their (big) welcome
taraf de haidouks were apparantly brilliant but not from my far-off position
zic zazou brought their own portable kiosk-come-stage and were huge fun
...another 24 acts performed that i just did not get anywhere near
you just cannot see everything across the 6 stages at this festival
the highlights of this year's festival came down to 3 really
toumani diabate's symmetric orchestra were astounding
mamadou diabate's solo concert was breathtaking
cesaria evora's band were heartwarming
another womadelaide for another year
a very hot event at least literally
roll on 2009
