After years of extolling the festival’s virtues, we’d brought our mate Hoghead down for his first WOMAD at Reading in 2006. Hog is a rocker with a great love for anything guitar-based, but this was a completely different musical world for him.
That year, WOMAD staples and masters of bhangra-fusion The Dhol Foundation were a last-minute replacement for a band that couldn’t make it. While I was down the front, Hog hung back, never one for dancing. But I’d occasionally look back over to see him, mouth agape, gently shaking his head – the energy from the five huge Punjabi drums on stage clearly working their magic. After the set, the stage’s MC, the gentleman Neil Sparkes, let us slip backstage and we ended up getting a fantastic photo with TDF frontman Johnny Kalsi – with Hoghead grinning like a wally in his Motörhead t-shirt. We were all in a daze afterwards, our conversation mostly consisting of “wow!” and “corr!”. It was a magical gig.
What an honour it is to watch a mind get blown, experiencing intoxicating music that was otherwise completely new to them – and it’s something that happens all the time at WOMAD.
Photo: (l-r) the writer, the writer's dad Paul, Johnny Kalsi, Hoghead, backstage at the Village Stage, WOMAD Reading 2006.