Voodoo Fest Review in Consequence of Sound
Forget for a moment that Cheick Hamala Diabate hardly, if ever, does major festival dates like Voodoo. Forget for a moment that the Diabate family has a centuries-old tradition of West African griot oral tradition. Just listen to those joyous grooves, so bright and full of life! Diabate’s sounds didn’t strike the head like Neil Young would later that night, but his eight-musician line up of tambourine, ngoni (a form of African banjo), balafon, bass, sax, djembe drum, guitar, drum kit and more (musicians switched instruments often) danced in the mild night air like fireflies. His tambourinist/percussionist danced, too, tossing her instrument aside for long sections of songs to bust a move. All the old people that would later be at Neil Young were dancing gingerly here, tapping into something deeply tribal and human in all of us. Trust.