Cuttings

The East of England has not been served well by New Order. Only one gig in Norfolk ( Pennies in Norwich in 1982 ), none in Suffolk, only one in Kent ( Margate Winter Gardens in 1984 ), and this, their sole appearance in my own county of Essex. I wonder if in part it's proximity to London, although that logic can hardly be applied to part of Suffolk, Norfolk and Kent that can easily be two hours away. WOMAD itself has had a nomadic existence, although unlike some of its venues, Mersea Island was not repeated. Mersea Island sits a little way outside of Colchester in North Essex, and is reached by a causeway that can flood at high tide (and the official programme for the event included high tide times to help with that). This meant that getting to and away from the venue was not an easy task. On the Saturday in question, there'd already been plenty of thunderstorms rattling around, so a late July festival was not likely to be as pleasant as the season would s...

 

RAIN STOPS PLAY WOMAD FESTIVAL  Mersea Island, Essex IF Ian Curtis hadn't done the decent thing, New Order would be just another bunch of white electro-dronesters consigned eternally to the middle reaches of the "alternative" (what viable alternative is offered, I've always wondered) charts. I see a ship in the harbour. Nah, it's the Thames Estuary, really (Caroline has the same amazing eyesight of Adrian Thrills ) , but there are a score or more fishing boats at anchor for the night. WOMAD '85 is in Mersea, Essex, an island not quite as remote as the Isle Of Skye, but nearly as inaccessible - the only road link with the mainland floods at high tide. If you're caught on the wrong side - say, on your way home from neighbouring Colchester - all you can do is wait it out. "I don't like that bridge," says my taxi driver. "It's haunted by a Roman centurion." It's a new moon tonight, and she's worried about getting home...

Page 6—New Musical Express 27th July, 1985 IT'S A WOMAD, MAD, MAD WORLD GAVIN MARTIN and ADRIAN THRILLS return from ‘The Mexican Embassy’ and other vantage points at last weekend’s WOMAD Festival in Essex to declare — hey, some of these events are good! First, second, and third world pictures by FOUR EYES . IT STARTED late, of course, and stayed that way the whole time I was there. The crowd didn’t seem to mind, they arrived gradually in painted charabancs and buses —weekend campers, the festival freaks, alternative entrepeneurs, purveyors of mind-altering stimulants, women carrying their children in kangaroo pouches, squaddies from the nearby army camp, kids with outrageously painted faces. They set up home in a cross between a Saxon village and a Morrocan street bazaar. The easygoing frugality extended to the backstage area where the changing rooms were a collection ofsmall marquees (no limo entrances and hasty Glastonbury style exits here). Flanked on one side...

ROCKIN' ALL OVER... WOMAD Mersea Island  SEA-SPEED-samba-Sufi-shhhhh-sensational: WO! MAD! 1985 was like being plugged in to a satellite-linked cable TV with a benzedrined conductor flicking manically through the channels. The test card never appeared, the suspense was as rife as the smiles, and the movie had a happy ending. Lord have Mersea, for the latter is the island near Colchester where this copulation of musical cultures took place. The dividing line between scrambled synapses and sublime sounds is as broad as a greyhound. The day before I reached the World Of Music Arts And Dance, I was mugged by a dog in London park who stole my baked potato. I didn't notice any Afgans, but maybe they'd already been turned into waistcoats. Yet while Pete's Planetary Incense reeked, there were moments when the globe was a falafel and it tasted real good. For on a weekend when the South African Government was considering implementing emerge...