There is a place where no cars go
There is a place where no song lists grow
It’s hard to think of that place in this globalised world when we live in a country where the English language is almost universally spoken. On top of this, Australian music festivals tend to perpetuate the music world order and continue to cleave to a relatively timid and tight crop of British, European and American artists.
WOMADelaide provides a vital yearly reminder of the breadth of the planet’s people and their music. Set in the beautiful Adelaide botanical gardens, WOMADelaide gives you just that opportunity to imagine such places. And a chance to dance and dream in a foreign language. Even a chance to choose your next exotic adventure holiday, like The Dead Kennedy’s Holiday in Cambodia – but really Rwanda?
The Good Ones are a trio of subsistence farmers from rural Rwanda who survived two of the country’s three genocides. They started playing together as a musical healing for the unimaginable horrors of the Rwandan massacres. Each member coming from one of the three warring tribes; Tutsi, Hutu and Abatwa. Sadly one of the founding members died by his own demons. Memorialised in the song My Smartest Friend Lost His Mind.
They live without electricity and have had little access to devices to reproduce musical recordings. The Good Ones’ vocalisations are based on the singing traditions and dialect of their local immediate, agricultural district more than by outside and western influences. Their initial recording in 2010 by Ian Brennan was the first international release of songs in the Kinyarwanda language.
Watching the sound check, their stage is minimalist but then something really special happens, while Adrien plays guitar and sings, Janvier takes off his boots and puts them on his hands and kicks out a rhythm with his hand shoes. The sound is mesmerising in its simplicity. When they play it has a rare and delicate beauty. When they stop for applause between songs their hands and faces ignite in pure unfettered joy.
It would be glib of me to try to describe the depth of their poetry and music in English without being able to use of their own language. Please just watch some of their recorded live performances at https://youtu.be/l_P4UjbkSJk?si=NC7E5oKQ9LnTr4rB (and turn on the captions ) or https://youtu.be/wcj5IPDzGI0?si=BskpTYMX9O_13ZNz
They finish early but as their champion (and minder) Ian Brennan announces, live performances in front of large audiences are not familiar to them and it’s often hard to gauge just how long they may play for. After some discussion they offer an encore choice of either a genocide song chronicling the horrific recent history of Rwanda or a love song. What would we choose if our families and friends had been brutally murdered by our neighbours, our teachers and our priests? But these are The Good Ones and they will choose………….love.
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