Segou Music Festival

I'm still trying to catch up on my blog posts... Sheesh.

From Feb 15th to the 20th I rallied on up to Segou to catch the Festival sur le Niger.  It was a really good time, and I was completely impressed with how set up it was...since it was in Mali.  It was almost like a US concert!!  Just not as loud perhaps, and definitely not on schedule.  The music was from all over the world, but concentrated on artists from Mali and it went all day and all night.  There were two main stages and numerous little venues.  The smaller of the main stages had music during the day, and the bigger of the main stages at night.  The big stage was really, really cool as it was on a barge out in the Niger river (it was only about 5 or 10 feet off shore for obvious reasons).  This made for an amazing backdrop for the music.

During the day admission was free, and I spent the days strolling around catching random shows or parts of shows, sitting by one of the hotel pools, and enjoying the awesome street vendors who came out in force for the festival.  The days tended to be pretty laid-back but super fun, and the street food was way better than it usually is.  At nights everything sort of cranked up a notch.  At around 5 security would come into the area which was barricaded off on one side by the river, on one side by some buildings, and by some built barricades on two other sides.  They'd then proceed to kick everyone out who did not have a wrist band which meant all the poor people because you had to pay for a wrist band.  It was sort of horrible... my friends and I were standing in the big square and after security had kicked everybody out the only people remaining were basically all white.  The wealthier Malians didn't bother to go to the day time shows it would seem and would just show up to the night time shows for the big names.  They'd show up a little later.  The big stage was scheduled to start each night at 7 or 8, but usually was an hour or so behind.  For some reason, they were not good at getting the sound checks done ahead of time or in a timely manner, so the headliners usually didn't hit the stage until 11pm or so.  The shows usually went until about 2 in the morning and were followed by a DJ for an after party each night at a different locale.  I only managed to get to the after party two nights just because I was so tired, and the after party would usually go until 5 or 6 am.  I was just not up for staying up that late too much especially since sleeping much past 8 was very difficult due to the heat.  I was camped out at the designated "camping area" which was just a dirt parking lot inside one of the hotel compounds and once the sun hit me, it was just too hot to consider sleeping any more.

The main acts were generally pretty good.  Again they could have been louder, but I really like loud music so I'm not sure if I'm a good judge of the volume.  Also, the organizers did not do a great job with the flow of the shows.  For example, the big night (Sat) had a bunch of big names, and the place was packed and buzzing with energy.  They started out with a Malian blues guitarist, followed by a Kenyan rock and roll group that got everybody really pumped and excited.  At 11pm they brought out a very famous Malian singer, who had a nice voice, but was kind of like a Malian version of Enya.  Nice to listen to, but basically put everybody to sleep right before the main act which made the main act's job a lot harder because he had to get everybody going again.  The main act was Salif Keita who is an albino Malian, and one of the most famous Malian musicians.  He tours internationally, and puts on a pretty good show.  All the shows had good lighting by Malian standards, and the big names even had one little flame thrower in the back for some pyrotechnics.  The lighting and fire was sort of funny though because it all seemed very random.  In the states, I am used to well rehearsed shows with the lighting and all the other elements coordinated with the music.  Here, it seemed like the light board operator just sort of randomly decided when to feature certain lights and effects.  Like..."Hmmm... let's see, I haven't pushed the flame thrower button in a while.  I'll do it...NOW!"  And up would go the flames during one of the calmest part of a song instead of hitting the big breaks for emphasis.

One of my favorite acts was on Sunday (the last day), and it was a Venezuelan drum groups with an electronic "fusion."  So, it was a couple of guys playing "African" style drums and a DJ who would put some fun electronic music behind the extremely talented drums.  I thought these guys should have taken the place of the Enya-like lady instead of playing Sunday when the crowd was tired and laid-back and just looking for some light music to sit back and groove to.  If they had played Saturday night instead they would have had a super-high energy and fun crowd.  The crowd was probably my favorite part of the whole festival.  It was fun to experience Malian music in a Malian crowd as they got really into the music.  I usually pushed my way through the crowd to the front where people were going nuts!  They were really dancing and singing along to all the tunes they knew.  One night I ended up by some really drunk Malians which was really fun because most Malians don't drink so it was a new experience for me.  Because I look homeless, the asked if I was Jesus, so of course I said, "yes."  Then they got really stoked and started chanting "Jesus! Jesus!" and lifting me up in the air (I think they were some of the few Christians in Mali).  Man, what a good time!!