*As Womad 2023 has just passed, I thought I would post my review of Womad 2022, which never got printed in the end because the title it was supposed to appear in ceased publication shortly afterwards. Better late than never!


REVIEW: Womad 2022, Charlton Park, Wiltshire (July 28-31)      

This was without doubt a momentous Womad festival – the first in the UK for three years following the pandemic period, and the 40th since its inception – and boy did it show.

There were 39,000 in attendance at the last Womad in 2019, this weekend rising to 40,000, and thankfully no heatwave weather this time – a more temperate mix of sunshine, cloud and patches of drizzle to clear the air. Spirits certainly weren’t dampened at any point though: the atmosphere from the outset unsurprisingly a lot more buzzy than usual.
​
The biggest trump card of this festival, as ever, is the sheer variety and eclecticism of its programme, with bands and artists from all over the globe, covering a wide spectrum of musical genres. It remains truly unique in this respect on the UK circuit.

​After last month's day with the police dealing with some of London's more unsavoury characters, this month I spent six days on a press trip to Israel with someone who was in many ways a lot worse, to the point that the Israeli guards' guns (pictured) looked increasingly attractive as the week drew on. (*To clarify, I don't have the full data on Britain's bullshitters but he's indisputably the biggest I've ever met.)

The background to this is that you often have to spend press trips with other journalists, and as many PR people will tell you: “There’s always one in every group...(making) the trip less enjoyable for everyone else".  Step forward - 'Stan', which is as close to his real name without fully revealing it.

All I know about Stan is he used to work for a red-top tabloid before losing his job, not long after somehow being shortlisted for 'Reporter of the Year' - something he mentioned at least four times during the week. His most immediately prominent physical attribute though was his grating, unintelligible northern accent: a nasal babble somewhere between a sped-up Liam Gallagher and that Lancashire girl off The Apprentice a few years back.   

​Since the turn of the year I’ve noticed the increasing presence of a company called Grammarly in my social media feeds, from friends thumbs-upping the service on FB to retweets of its stock language memes on Twitter. 

For anyone unaware of it, Grammarly’s basically a grammar-checking app which, while appearing to be just a fancier version of Microsoft Word’s built-in document reviewer, actually bills itself “the world’s most accurate grammar checker”, helping “more than 3 million writers...perfect their written English” (monthly fee $29.95).

That’s an impressive claim. It may well be the world's best grammar checker, but that's not necessarily saying much because it turns out the platform isn't that accurate – reviews have shown that Grammarly regularly misses clear mistakes in checked documents, while flagging errors that don't exist.
​
That was never going to bother me as I'd never use it anyway, and wasn't going to pay to give it a go out of curiosity, so I was happy to see it recently publicise an infographic of its application of grammatical rules, entitled ‘Fifty Shades of Grammar’ to tie in with the release of the eponymous movie. 

I recently interviewed Premier League pundit and retired striker Jason Roberts at his Foundation headquarters in hometown Stonebridge, for an article in The Independent on the fall and rise of the west London high school we both attended. With the initial education-related questions answered we were free to discuss all things football for the remainder of our one-hour meet, during which he opened up about his career highs and lows encompassing his eventful tenures at Wigan and Reading, scoring a winner at Highbury and almost signing for QPR. Faithfully transcribed below:


What would you say was the best goal you ever scored, or that you’re most proud of?

(Pause) A header for Reading against Southampton. (Clocks quizzical reaction) Exactly - a header, you think ‘really?’. If I scored more than five headers in my career that was a lot – it wasn’t the kind of goal I scored traditionally, and this one was purely on instinct. There was just something about the ball hitting you in the head or face that I never felt comfortable with.

There’s not that many of your goals on YouTube that aren’t jerky footage from the stands. Have you never thought of uploading some yourself or getting someone to?

I never have but now that you mention it! There are a couple on my official website. But I’m proud of my goalscoring record, to have scored at every level. And when you’re the lone striker in a 4-5-1 for a Premier League side who’s relatively, you know - survival is the priority? If you score double figures you’ve done incredibly well. Many times I sacrificed my goalscoring record for the team.

​I remember once at a Metallica gig at O2 Arena in 2008: frontman James Hetfield pausing to tell everyone in the immediate crowd to “put your fuckin’ cameras and phones away, and just enjoy the show ok?”. (Kate Bush was yesterday the latest artist to make the same request, in much politer words).

James was of course addressing the usuals focused on the tiny screens of their devices, impeding the live experience for the sake of some jerky low-res footage. (To be fair, I’ve done the same but years ago and only a couple of times, for never-played-before tracks).

If I were a member of the Google Glass advertising team I might suggest something like this live bollocking as a decent ad opener, then while the offenders sheepishly lower their phones (as they did in real life) we pan sideways to a smiling metalhead casually recording it all unnoticed through the small prism fixed over his eyeball, his hands free to throw a devil’s horn or lift aloft his plastic beer receptacle as the next number roars into life.


This is the original version of a gig review written for Record Collector in March, which was as usual chopped down to fit into its live reviews section so I thought I’d post it here unedited with a final curtain pic taken from the balcony.

I covered this show primarily because Albert is a true guitar legend who I saw live for the first time with Jools Holland at Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College in 2010 (above); and secondly because the special guest lineup was accordingly pretty impressive, with rock 'n' roll gentry including The Shadows and Shaky airing some long-overdue new material. 

As I tweeted after, it’s actually quite poignant that this lot are pretty much the last of their kind, of a scene that'll soon
be consigned to history unless contemporary acts beyond the likes of Jake Bugg try to keep that 50s flame flickerin’...

This is the original gig review submission for the December issue of Record Collector, in which it was pared down
to squeeze into its live reviews section so I thought I’d post it here unedited.

L42 are one of my favourite bands from the golden 80s era when singles success actually meant something, and as mentioned in the review they still play their funkpop classics with the same enthusiasm and technical flair as when
they started out.

Last saw them at Royal Albert Hall in 08 but Indigo2 a great little venue too so full justice given and no negatives to report.