Look I’m decidedly post Womad. By that I mean that my head is kindof woolly, my feet ache and there’s that run-down bad-breathy feeling going on in me throat. Not good. So lock oneself away, maybe find a piece of Kendal’s Mint Cake – yup, sorted! – and unwind those tired (pre)tensions and racy uncertainties. About individual bands/the nature of performing to largish bundles of folk. Mm. Because I’m medium vexed or maybe just fascinated by certain notions this whole festival thing has cast; shadows over the undoubted sunshine.

But lest you worry, sagacious reader, that I may be veering in blissful ignorance towards Grumpy Ole Gitsville, like some ancient vicar at the helm of a Morris Traveller, let’s start with the joys, the highlights I personally encountered. And there were several, which I will recount in a meaningless but instinctive order reflecting either something very profound, or something like partial memory loss.

1. El Tanbura (Egypt)
2. Dub Pistols (UK)
3. Hassan Erraji’s MoRocan Rollers (Morocco/UK)
4. Anda union (Mongolia/China)
5. some of Donso (Mali/France)
6. Anda Union (cooking and playing)
7. Gogol Bordello (USA)
8. Giving Soul – film animation.

All these offered something special… and there is no doubt I missed plenty of unmissable stuff too. Like your favourites?

I cannot, however, proceed any further without briefly alluding to the context of my Womad experience, as the presence of my own nuclear family – kids aged 12 and 8 – plus former longish term Tanzania resident (known out of earshot as The Wife) inevitably enriched/compromised said experience both qualitatively and in terms of consumption.

I watched a fair bit of stuff with an 8 year old girl bopping either enthusiastically or limply upon my shoulders. I watched some stuff drifting stealthily through the comatose flanks, from beneath cooling trees, or ideally placed by the sound men – whom I may have pretended to oversee, authoritatively. I could not, in other words, smash down tequila pops and then MASH IT UP with either Dub Pistols or Gogol Bordello – both of whom I saw and enjoyed in a regrettably rather mature fashion. But this is, I contend, the nature of the festival scene, often its strength; being exposed to the colours of the thing as a group.

Which brings me to El Tanbura. Friday, 3pm, on the open air stage. Classic Womad, being billed as the “Musical elders with the soundtrack of a revolution”; being welcomed with well-earned R.E.S.P.E.C.T. from us Guardian/Indie and crucially, Womad Festival Programme reading masses. Being a quietly acquired joy, engaging and truly worth our attention. Being probably absolutely what a festival of this nature is all about – music as conscience as well as toe-tapping opiate. Respect and even that pinko-tinged but genuine feeling of brotherhood was unmistakeably in the air for the soundtrackers of Tahrir Square. What have they seen, compared to us, in their recent past! If I could I would bless them.

The programme then drew a lump of us over to watch Taraf de Haidouks – “the true Gypsy kings”. But they were apparently playing at the wrong speed and their trebly, virtuouso shrillness was not, alas, for me. Similar but different were The Boxettes, an “all-female beatboxing quartet”, who were intermittently striking but I felt not well served by indifferent sound. Their extraordinary vocal bass notwithstanding, it felt like a gig that wasn’t working. I needed a break and food.

Dub Pistols brought the street-wise energy and mosh-pit testosterone levels right up, being the “renegade furistic skank” artists the label described. Those of us influenced and indebted to Two Tone and punk enthusiastically re-stepped the skankified ground of the Specials with these spiky geezers, these lads. It was a show fit to headline and close the night… and when we walked out of the darkening Big Red Tent it seemed frankly weird that having seen all this, it was only 8.20 pm.

So I prob’ly didn’t need or much want anymore. Not that same Friday night. Consequently either I failed to engage with Alpha Blondy, or he failed to engage with me.

There was, by this time, already the feeling that too many “How you doin’ Womad’s?”/elongated introductions to band members/laboured calls for audience ‘participation’ etc. etc might be undermining the truth of things. I’m not looking for a particularly purist entertainment folks, don’t get me wrong. But is it just me or is there something of an issue with global musical awareness – amongst artists(?) – inevitably leading to fusionization of individual musics? So nearly every major African headlining act gets a western-sounding Les Paul wielding axeman for those suddenly necessary breaks. And you have to have appropriate stagecraft. And get the audience to sing something back at you. Are these the inevitable consequence of time/familiarity/knowledge/the need to entertain large numbers of folks all at the same time?

I’m afraid I’ve gotten a tad distracted with this one… but is festival fever (surely an interesting social phenomenan in its own right?) complicit in the bastardization or undermining of real world music whilst at the same time bringing it, wonderfully, to a wider, newer audience?

Can I leave you to think about that one whilst I put on the metaphorical kettle, returning later with hopefully a stress-freer review of some of my own real highlights. Of which there were several.