The music world’s gone mad for festivals. Everywhere you turn, someone’s shoving a few bands into a field and calling it a festival. And the punters are lapping it up. Glasto sold out in 90 seconds flat, Big Day Out is putting on extra shows for only the second time in its history, and every other Joe’s on his way to Coachella, Burning Man or All Tomorrow’s Parties.
But it’s a slightly different festival that’s got me frothing at the mouth. ‘Le Festival Au Desert’ (yep, it’s a festival in a desert), just a stone’s throw from Timbuktu in northern Mali, has got all the usual festival pre-requisites – tents, awkward toilet facilities, a remote location… with the added bonus of camel-racing, touareg campfires and sand-castles.
Not surprisingly, given its location, Le Festival Au Desert is something of a West African musical jamboree. Recent years have seen performances by the likes of Tinariwen, Ali Farka Touré, Amadou & Mariam with Manu Chao (one for the European contingent!), and Toumani Diabaté, the world’s most renowned kora player, and a proponent of both the classical form and also the Tap-approved jazz-funk odyssey, with his Symmetric Orchestra in tow.
Damon Albarn has also made an appearance, and if that isn’t a sign that this is a quality gathering of West African musical talent, then I don’t know what is. Although, on second thoughts, Albarn does tend to pop up at the merest peep of a kora, busting out his melodica, getting down with the locals, and squeezing a record out of it. As you do.
Anyway, regardless of Damon Albarn’s sentiments on the whole affair, I need to get to Timbuktu. It’s time for tea in the Sahara.
