![\"Laetitia](\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20220812170741\/http:\/\/thesecretlist.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/P1020237.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLaetitia Sadier\u2019s soft, melancholic sound hangs in the big Languedoc-Roussillon sky.The music is beautiful. My heart skips a beat, and for a brief moment I\u2019m transported from the cliff top amphitheatre, the sea as a backdrop, to somewhere else, all the while being serenaded by Sadier\u2019s trio. I look at my phone. Dan \u2013 and part of The Secret List team \u2013 should be here. \u201cJust finishing dinner\u2026is it all running to time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadier holds court, very much giving off rock star cool to the hundred odd members of the audience who have made the 7.30pm start. By the 8.15pm end of the set, there are several hundred people moving their heads and their feet. This is the start of what will be a truly memorable evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Sadier\u2019s set reflects the excellence of the music at the Worldwide Festival, the crowd is an example of another stand out point of the event. The atmosphere is friendly people smile at each other, friends joke and laugh loudly and it is easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Copies of The Secret List Paris are passed around a trio of Britain\u2019s finest music ambassadors \u2013 Thris Tian (Boiler Room), Alex Patchwork (Ninja Tune) and Earl Zinger aka Rob Gallagher. Alex champions the book and contact details are shared. As new friends are made, old acquaintances are reignited. \u201cI remember you, we had a conversation about the Great West Road two years ago.\u201d Rob Gallagher then passes me a poster for his new project. The poster miraculously makes its way intact from the festival to London before onwards to Hanoi. Still no Dan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ed Motta, looking like a funky professor, strolls on stage to a packed amphitheatre, the Sete skyline by now has a curious purple tinge. School\u2019s in. And right on time Dan appears. Motta eclipses Sadier\u2019s brilliant opening set, with smooth sweet soul and sparks of bossa, jazz and funk. Ed Motta can shake a groove. He\u2019s a brilliant entertainer \u2013 a raconteur, comedian \u2013 and two seemingly impromptu duets with Cuban singer Daym\u00e9 Arocena and vibes veteran Roy Ayers highlight his versatility as a performer. It turns out the guest slots are not quite as spontaneous as we first thought; at least one was organised beforehand, but it is a genuinely touching moment when Daym\u00e9 confesses a teenage crush on Motta. Ayers\u2019 guest slot is especially good, his wonderful performance is even better than his Monday headline gig (the lesser known \u2018Evolution\u2019 was a highlight at the Monday gig).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Giving the audience no time to catch its breath, Thailand\u2019s famed Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band causes a crowd surge. The enchanting eastern guitar intro moves to a funky groove, and the packed auditorium rises to its feet. The band are excellent and within a few minutes, there is a stage invasion of sorts as the crowd dance a few centimetres from the band. This is Sete, and the security guards do not stop the crowd, they join in the dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Japan Night <\/strong>\u2013<\/strong> Didn\u2019t I Used To Know You?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s just gone past midnight, and there are over a thousand up-for-it ravers ready to throw their hands in the air. The venue\u2019s lasers cast a sci-fi like backdrop against the nocturnal sea. I\u2019m standing behind Daisuke Tanabe and Yosi Harikawa, and their calm silhouettes perfectly frame the backdrop. I\u2019ve followed Daisuke since he started out ten years ago when he was living in London. Many of the crowd are expecting Daisuke to begin with a big dance tune to start the mayhem. Instead Daisuke and Yosi give the crowd a field recording, produced earlier in the day, of the Sete sounds of seagulls, jousting along the canal and the fisherman\u2019s market. The crowd are confused. Intertwined with the sounds are ambient washes, sharp digital beats and other technology trickery. It takes DJs of some experience to lose and then win back their crowd with their first tune, yet Daisuke and Yosi are barely in their twenties. For the next hour and a half, I and most others, are dazzled by Yosi\u2019s ambient, digital set punctuated by Daisuke\u2019s drum \u2018n\u2019 bass excursion. The crowd roars for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly when DJ dons Toshio Matsuura and Shuya Okino take to the stage, dressed in traditional Japanese silk gowns, there is an expectation that a disco classic or the like will be dropped. Instead the ever-confident duo play Fumio Itabashi\u2019s \u2018Watarase\u2019, a leftfield jazz stormer. Again the crowd is initially confused and then starts dancing. Matsuura, who I first saw as part of the legendary Japanese group United Future Organisation at the Subterrania, London in 1991, and Okino do not disappoint. The duo are magnificent in their selection, from killer jazz to disco edits to heavy electro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I Found Her Red Coat, I Found Her<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Colin, Reema and Mohsen are sitting at the top right hand corner of the amphitheatre. Every year it\u2019s the same, in the thousand+ capacity venue I can find the trio within minutes. Each year they sit in more or less the same place. The \u2018right hand crew\u2019 are my second group of friends at the festival. Colin\u2019s a school friend, who used to live on the next road to me, but we lost touch after school. Two decades later we met at Notting Hill Carnival, and the following year at Sete. Reema his wife, was born a few miles from us in west London. Mohsen is a university friend of Reema\u2019s, massive in muscle and a very funny guy. Despite me living an international life, it\u2019s great to travel to faraway places- I live in Hanoi \u2013 and meet people from your locale. It takes five seconds from when we all meet for the west London accent to permeate. It\u2019s also a good example of how sometimes Sete feels like London by the sea. But overall the town warmly welcomes and accommodates all festival goers and French vocab not used since school is welcomed and understood. Paris it ain\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n James Blake is the biggest electronic artist in the world and his early evening set on the Tuesday is brilliant. His haunting, eerie vocals delicately emanate both strength and fragility, warmth and coldness.\u2019The Wilhelm Screm\u2019 perfectly encapsulates this, blanketed by acoustic drums and stark keyboards. Crowd favourite, \u2018CMYK\u2019, is especially good and the audience quickly rises to its feet after the opening bars. Colin, Reema, Mohsen and I scream the chorus \u201cI found her, her red coat, I found her\u2019. It seems about a thousand other people join us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are numerous other highlights during the week: the sun-drenched beach crowd with their hands in the air when Benji B drops Jamie Principle\u2019s \u2018Your Love\u2019; the disco and Brazilian set from Floating Points; discovering Callis in Wonderland; Loefah\u2019s heavy dub\/dubstep set; and the incredibly clear sound system at the amphitheatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harvey Runs the Voodoo Down \u2013 The Myth and Legend of DJ Harvey<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n DJ Harvey is a legend. A legend built mainly on an immense talent as a DJ and producer. When Harvey performs, a musical earthquake occurs. And the days before Harvey performs, the Internet is fuelled by rumours, gossip and speculation. What will Harvey play? Will he go cosmic disco or soft rock?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the legend surrounding Harvey is based on myth. The intense world surrounding Mr Harvey Bassett was built on a well-documented ten year exodus to the US, where amongst the Los Angeles skate community he built a cult following. But before his move to the US, Harvey was already an established name in the UK. When stories began to emerge from California of all night shebangs and sun-kissed sets mixing yacht rock and celestial disco, it added to his reputation. After twelve years when his visa issue was sorted and he was able to travel back to the UK, his legend \u2013 talent and myth \u2013 was cemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like any good mythical fable, I start the evening with a trip to the hills. We \u2013 Colin, Reema, Mohsen and I \u2013 travel the winding roads in a hatchback with Mohsen navigating the narrow roads to a blasting soundtrack of eighties hip hop. I ask for Run DMC, we get KRS One. As we shout \u201cThat\u2019s the sound of da police\u201d, we arrive at a villa. Dan has gone all Goldfinger. The Bond-like pad boasts an outdoor swimming plan overlooking Sete. We sip cold ros\u00e9 and meet some newly arrived visitors \u2013 a photographer, a location film manager etc. At around midnight we head back to town to St.Christ lighthouse. Lil\u2019 Louis Vega is on, and though playing some choice latin house numbers, he is a little underwhelming. The wait until 3am for Harvey will be a long one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At just after three, the DJ emerges. There is an impressive laser display and a Languedoc-Roussillon flag waves proudly above. Gilles Peterson introduces Harvey and then\u2026silence. Harvey looks nervous and slightly agitated. And then after a few seconds\u2026boom! What follows is an immense musical experience. There is an intense percussive sound, a hint of Africa coupled with the house sounds of Chicago and Berlin. I and the few thousand ravers around me are immediately \u2018in the mix\u2019. The tribal beat dominates Harvey\u2019s playing, with some melodic respite with some deep keys. I am standing near the front but within a few minutes it gets too busy. I find a sweet spot at the back, centre stage. Again the festival\u2019s sound set up, designed and supplied by Funktion One, comes through. The music is loud, clear, heavy and subtle. After three tracks though I drop the hi-fi geek and as clich\u00e9 would allow I throw my hands in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After ninety brilliant minutes, I walk back to my hotel a few minutes before 5am, along the quayside past the Bistrot du Port, with Harvey\u2019s set playing in the background. I am on a massive high and am grateful for the reason I am here. Every year I get an e-mail from Gilles Peterson offering me a free ticket. Each year I leave the festival on a high. I first got into Gilles Peterson in 1986 when my mate Andrew Dixon played me a tape of Peterson\u2019s \u2018Mad on Jazz\u2019 radio show on Radio London. I\u2019ve followed Peterson through Jazz FM, Kiss FM and when he did a low key, Sunday evening trial run on Radio 1 in 1998. When I wrote for Blues and Soul magazine I wrote a review for the Ghost Dog soundtrack and sent him a cryptic message. He answered the call and we were a musical family united, the professor and the student, the mentor and the mentee, Miles Davis to Wayne Shorter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I bump into Gilles earlier in the week at the famed Wednesday session. Each year however busy he is, he always finds the time for a proper catch up. \u201cWhat a festival! Maybe the best ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember you. Welcome back<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote this review in July 2015 and reading it now, it was the actual beginnings of “it’s better to travel”, a full two years before I came up with the idea for the book. There is a set of restaurants beside the quay in Sete, a small fishing village just west of the old … <\/p>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"