The Afro Celt Sound System interview
Festival favourites and hardcore Glasto-heads The Afro Celt Sound System have been here many times before and seen it all. As globetrotting musicians, both literally and musically, they continue to renew their pulsating world-beat brew – for those who don’t know this includes hard Irish folk, African beats aplenty and thumping bass lines of a colossal size. Kicking off their world tour in Dublin on Thursday June 26, they’re launching a reborn ACSS for the 21st century. Founding member Simon Emmerson gave us five minutes to air a few frustrations about this festival and its irresistible pull.
How are things with the Afro Celts?
Really good. We’re about to start a massive tour in the States, we just played Dublin and had a fantastic gig, so it’s a bit of a disappointment coming here and finding we’re not in the official listings, even after we headlined this stage, but that’s Glastonbury for you! However, I was here last year and I had a great time.
Have you got a new album out?
Yeah, it’s called Seed on Real World records. It's a great album, with a new drummer and bass player, and we were hoping to do a gig with them on the Pyramid but we’ve been moved to the One World stage and we’ll be doing a smaller sound system there.
Has the band changed at all recently?
Well, we’ve got a full band now, with the sound system plus an amazing rhythm section and it sounds really good.
Does the frustration of coming to Glastonbury ever deter you from returning year after year?
It’s really frustrating to know that we haven’t been listed today so all our fans will turn up tomorrow and no one will be here today, it makes the whole thing a bit pointless, really. We’ve already headlined this stage – we played here last four years ago with Baaba Maal and then back in ’98 – the really muddy year, just before David Byrne, and that was another amazing gig.
And how about Afro Celt’s future – are things solid and secure?
Yeah, yeah we’re starting like a new band and a new concept and we’re taking that out live. Dublin was amazing and that was where we road-tested it. We’re headlining at the Cambridge festival at the beginning of August, so if any of our fans miss us here they can see the new band there, plus we have a Royal Festival Hall gig at the start of September.
Mike Flynn
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