WOMAD Singapore
Last Sunday Carly and I found ourselves heading over to WOMAD (big musical festival thing-o) and met up with one of the teacher's she works with. This was a great time. Quite an eclectic mix of musicians were there from all over the world. We saw bands from Mali, France, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Australia (and maybe some others).
The band we saw from Mali was an African rock group called Tinariwen which was quite interesting, really easy to listen to, and not at all your typical North American "top 40".
A few other worthwhile mentions include a crazy group of teens/young adults from Singapore in a band called Wicked Aura Batucada. These guys make noise... A whole lot of noise. Definitely liked to put on a show, and quite a bit of fun for the crowd as well.
Probably the coolest group of the night (in my opinion anyways) was a band from India called The Dhol Foundation. Holy. These guys are an amazing piece of work. Fabulous drumming supported by an electric and bass guitarist. Absolutely outstanding. Too bad none of the pictures we took of them turned out.
Another group worth mentioning is the group from France (Les Yeux Noirs) that included two brothers who were violinists. I'm a big fan of the violin (among other stringed instruments) and these guys can put on a show. At one point, the one brother was resting his violin by just holding it under his chin, and the two of them were both playing on the one brothers violin. Unfortunately, describing it all in words isn't quite the same. Hearing and seeing, now that was fabulous.
Oh! And there was food there, too (surprise, surprise). Carly and I ate the most deliciously yummy chocolate brownie we can remember. It was insane.
