Saturday 10/03/07 Day 2 @ WOMADelaide, Botanic Park, Adelaide

It’s not too often that you get to write part of a gig review without leaving home – the quality can suffer a little – and still rarer that you can do it over a late breakfast and coffee. But The Backsliders, courtesy of a fresh northerly wind, are bouncing around my back yard, wailing and moaning and delivering some wonderfully primitive blues. The bad news is that the same wind is bringing down some heat, and plenty of it. No one will be too surprised if we hit forty before the day’s out. Time to fill the water bottles.

Down in the park, Fat Freddy’s Drop start with a slow, languorous beat that’s perfectly suited to a late night chill out or, equally, a scorching summer’s afternoon. DJ Fitchie, responsible for programmed bass and drums, is the foundation that everyone else builds on, with the rest of the band comprising guitar, keyboards, three horns and lead vocalist Joe Dukie. His lyrics are occasionally a little out of step – even as our skin crinkles Dukie tells us that “a little sun will make it alright” – but apart from that it’s a beautifully judged set that quickly wins the crowd over.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to hear – or better still, see – Tinariwen, there’s little doubt that you’ll be interested in Etran Finatawa. Though from Niger rather than Mali, three of the band are from the same Tuareg culture. Traditional percussionists are complemented by guitar and bass, and their music is in the same style as Tinariwen’s, sounding rather like the blues. They share the same overwhelming intensity, too, but only briefly. Their sound isn’t helped by congestion at the lower end: three percussionists and a bass player are staking out the same territory and there isn’t much variety or subtlety in what any of them do. But by the same token, it’s the lack of variety that can make their music so hypnotic when it gels.

One of the beauties of an event like Womad is that it lets you see connections where you haven’t before. Tonight it’s Lila Downs who joins the dots. She talks about the foundations of her music being native American, Spanish and African and plays a song called 'La Iguana'. One of her guitarists switches to harp (meaning harp, not harmonica) and when you close your eyes, there it is: a Mexican song with west African kora right at its heart.