ONE of the great things about Larmer Tree Festival is discovering new bands, and there were lots of fantastically fun and energetic world music bands that got the crowd going this year.
Staff Benda Bilili, a band made up of paraplegics and former street children who used to live around the zoo in Kinshasa, exploded on to the main stage on Saturday with their energetic soukous music – a speeded-up Africanised version of Cuban rumba.
They were great fun to dance to in the sunshine and mesmerising to watch as they enthusiastically moved to the music in their wheelchairs and on crutches.
La Chiva Gantiva was definitely my festival favourite. This Columbian-Belgian-French-Vietnamese band are lively, fun and seem to have boundless energy as the jump around the stage playing a variety of instruments.
They mix Afro-Columbian rhythms with other styles of music such as rock, afrobeat and funk to create something unique.
Their enthusiasm is infectious and their performance on the Main Stage on Saturday was so compelling I had to watch them again in the Big Top later that night.
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