Rambunctious 70-year-old Calypso Rose danced across the stage on the third day of the WOMAD festival, gesturing provocatively and singing: "Darling, do you have a small or a big bamboo".
Twas a brilliant moment in a defiant set of sexually and politically charged songs, performed as the sun was setting on the three-day event at Brooklands Park in Taranaki.
Rose, or McArtha Linda Sandy-Lewis, has been recording "raw and ribald" Calypso music since 1963. She isn't showing any signs of slowing down. Moving seamlessly from telling the girls they don't need a man to give them satisfaction to admonishing that "fool Gaddafi" and calling for peace from Africa to the Middle East, Rose exudes a passion for life that escapes most of those a third her age.
Who cares if she had to pause towards the end of the show to get her face towelled off by a stage manager? Rose is living proof you're as old as you feel.
Another festival highlight came from the opposite end of the musical spectrum. American guitarist Bob Brozman played his skilled, studied and precise music from the Gables stage atop Brooklands Park as we walked into our last day at WOMAD.
A bluesman at heart, Brozman has augmented his songs with sounds picked up on journeys around the world. Ancient roots music from Hawaii to Papua New Guinea are melded into the impressively full sound he ekes out of his steel-stringed guitars.
That passion for learning has earned him a place as an adjunct ethnomusicology professor at Macquarie University in Sydney. But it hasn't killed his sense of humour. Brozman takes delight in ripping into his homeland. His take on Sarah Palin: "I don't wish harm on anyone - I just wish she'd take a nap one afternoon and only wake up after I'm dead."
Mongolian/Chinese punk rockers Hanggai didn't talk any politics. They were there to rock. Born from the Chinese punk scene, the band have spliced the throat singing drone of Mongolian traditional music with heavy distorted electric guitar and even heavier beats. Their unhinged enthusiasm was refreshing in a festival notable for its artists' restraint. It must have rubbed off on me. Not long after hearing them, I was convinced to buy an exceptionally technicolour jacket by stall owner Lucita San Pedro, who told my partner she'd better stay with me while I was wearing it lest I instantly transform into a gigolo. Before I could work out whether to be flattered or annoyed, she'd made the sale.
It wasn't just the markets upping their game in the festival's final hours. As Hawaii's Mana Maoli Collective brilliantly put it, the vibes were vibing. Patea Maori Club took us all the way back to 1983 with a rendition of their chart topper Poi E.
Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq again entranced with 50 full minutes of rhythmic drones, barks and strangely haunting sing-song melodies. Coloured lights hung in the trees as we took a walk beside the still lakeside in the adjacent Pukekura Park. Blind Malian duo Amadou and Mariam closed the festival the way it started for us, with an hour of danceable anthems.
But the last word of this truly international event has to go to a couple of New Zealand icons, the Topp Twins. We managed to catch up with their alter egos Ken and Ken as they showed a huge crowd how to cook game meat at a 'Taste The World' seminar hosted by Peta Mathias. It was a hilarious hour as the Kens alternated between explaining their marinade, ribbing Peta and giving passionate views on how to treat the Kiwi environment.
Their two-word admonishment to DOC for its take on 1080 was brief and to the point. Their defence of duck shooting (if we don't kill some ducks then the other ducks won't have enough food) was just as funny: Ken:
"What is that disease they die of, Ken?" Other Ken: "Starvation". I see now why the pair are widely considered a treasure, a taonga, and a walking celebration of who we are as Kiwis. As our coffee guy said after: "I wish I was a girl, and I wish I was gay - I love them." Indeed. And as for the WOMAD festival as a whole, I think Ken put it best when he said: "Just bloody beautiful, mate".