Nuits D'Afrique day three

Today was a day of two bands I didn't like so much, and two bands I liked quite a lot.

My day began with the Salamate Gnawa group with members from Morocco and Quebec. It was a central main singer with, I suppose, the equivalent of a guitar when fine workmanship tools were less available. The other members of the group sang together in background and had what I'll call clackers in their hands to provide a background sound to the mostly rhythm that the central guitar player was playing. I didn't understand much of what was sung, and while it was nice to see these performers, I didn't get much enjoyment from their performance.

Next was Wess Beaudry, he is the drummer, primary singer and songwriter of the group (with members from Haiti and Quebec) which included two additional percussionists, two keyboardists and two background singers, the left singer in a blue net top was also a good dancer and, well, really nice to look at. I really liked this performance, with so much instrumentation the songs they played were rich and full. It was entertaining that the songs sung were often bilingual (English / French) which plays well in Montreal where most people are bilingual in this way.

Next was Somos Mas, an all female group from various South American countries; they sang only in Spanish and while they sounded good, not understanding them made this less interesting for me.

The last band, Cumbria Control, with members from Colombia and Quebec, was really good, they too had multiple percussion plus a cute keyboardist hidden at the back right in addition to the other band members. I really enjoyed them - for a few of their songs they had long instrumental sections that were really good.