Japanese funk and the freaks

We started travelling in March because we needed a deadline and that deadline was Saturday 8 March in Adelaide for my annual pilgrimage to WOMAD.

I love pretty much everything about WOMAD. The tasty food, iced coffee sitting on the sticky carpet of the chai tent, picnic rugs spreading out like multi-coloured moss from the base of every morton bay fig and dozing off to the sounds of something fascinating and magical and otherworldly.

But over the years I've come to realise that nothing is ever going to come close to my first WOMAD. Perfect experiences just can't be repeated.

This year was a case in point. For financial reasons we had decided to only go to one day and night of the festival. On the main stage we caught a Japanese funk band that essentially impersonated James Brown. They wore suits and ties and were sensational. But I was left with the feeling that they could have been from anywhere. Their only reference to Japan was to say 'we don't play Japanese music'.

There were some astounding Indian acrobats too but throughout their performance, we later admitted to each other, all we could think was 'shouldn't those kids be in school?' (Jess) and 'is that going to damage them for life?!' (Luis).

After blowing a weeks budget on watermelon slurpies, cider and a plate of ribs (I actually asked the guy serving us if they were the ribs, I honestly couldn't see them) we went home to the car.

The next night we decided to try the Fringe. We meandered through the Garden of Unearthly Delights resolutely not buying snacks until we saw the guy juggling chainsaws. Luis loves nothing better than to be simultaneously amazed and horrified. He's intensely squeamish and so, paradoxically, attracted to the possibility of gore. We watched the chainsaw guy through our fingers (he luckily still had his at the end) and then stood still, torn, as the green spruker sold $10 freak show tickets.

Best $20 we ever spent. There was a guy who swallowed balloons, popped them and then extracted them from his stomach. There was someone (see below) with horns implanted in his head and a forked tongue. Apparently he is famous in certain circles. The finale act involved someone getting shot at with a cross bow and catching it mid-flight. Which he did. Effortlessly.

We lashed out on a shared icecream and walked back through the deserted Adelaide streets quietly, hand in hand, pondering the strange things that people do with their time. Luis was very quiet and lost in thought. Finally, and a little hesitantly, he said 'did that arrow seem a little slow to you?'