Rainforest World Music Festival: Day One - The Adventure Continues

The weather was hot and humid, with mild wind blowing every now and then, but the crowd was building steadily. Set in the backdrop of the rainforest, two stages were set up - aptly called the Jungle stage and the smaller Tree stage. This has been the way it was - like tradition - since years of its organization. That was the Rainforest World Music Festival. The afternoon adventure I had earlier culminates to the evening concerts where the performers can truly play their tunes. 

Some of the performers

As the evening cools down with the absence of the sun, I heard the warrior's call native to the Land of the Hornbills bellows out accompanied by the iconic tunes of the sape'. Drawn the the callings, the crowd steadily made way to the stages to see up-close the warrior and a closer experience to one of the most popular sounds of Sarawak. 

The opening act from the Bisayah Gong orchestra was just as mesmerizing. Their music was part of their way of life since their ancestral times, commonly played to celebrate a good harvest, to heal the wounded and sick and as part of their war ritual as both battle cry as well as to warn their villagers of dangers. It is also common for the modern Bisayah families to keep at least a piece of Gong at home, if not a full set of them. 

The Bisayah Gong Orchestra

The Kalakan Trio

From the familiar tunes of my own homeland, I was whisked to the Tree stage to the autonomous community of Basque Country - a group of trio that calls themselves Kalakan. Armed with harmonic repertoires of Basque traditional songs (it sounds a little like Spanish) along with simple percussions, the trios bet on simplicity, elegance and a communication with their crowd generating and carrying emotions. Truly, listening to them in Spotify cannot compare with listening to them playing live! I really cannot tell if I'm ever going to have a change to hear them play live again, I completely immersed myself in their music. 

Son Yambu follows Kalakan, and my my as if the rainforest air was not hot and humid enough!! Fuuuhhh!! A Latin Salsa tune can turn the temperature from hot to oohhhhh mama that caused a whole lot of booty jiggling! Lucky me I packed a fan! As I've warned before, surviving the Rainforest World Music Festival requires a careful and meticulous preparation less it will ruin your experience. Did you follow my guide here? Let me know in the comments! 

It was always said to save the best of last, and no other words can describe the last performance of the first evening show. From the Basque country's traditional tunes to Cuban Latin Salsa, to Europe right in the heart of London! But no, this group is truly something else. The group that was most anticipated by my fellow blogger Lindy (read Lindy's blog here)  and Garner (read Garner's blog here), the group that was (probably) inspired by Captn' Jack Sparrow himself, the Blackbeard's Tea Party (yeah I can tell the group's performance gonna be epic!) 

The Blackbeard's Tea Party

There were percussion, guitar, violin, accordion, awesome voice (and melt-in-my-ear English accent) and a whole lotta dancing with these guys. Genuinely joyful, a little bit of cheeky and all around fun as they played songs after song and sing lyrics after lyrics playing the crowd all along. Although in all honestly their music is not my cup of tea, but considering it is a Balckbeard's Tea Party all along, what fool who did not enjoy it deserves a walk down the plank!

In the mean time, do enjoy the gallery below. It will be updated from time to time as there are tons of pictures to upload and credit so do return back for another visit! Ciao! 

Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

PS: I cannot say for certain where Blackbeard's Tea Party got their inspiration from. The connection between the group and Captn' Jack Sparrow or the whole Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is purely to the fictional imagination of the author. However, if you'd like to agree or to disagree, let me know in the comments.