Gabriel conceived the idea of WOMAD in 1980 with the intention of exposing large audiences to music from artists around the world. The
Dingaka soundtrack and the work of
Dollar Brand had fostered Gabriel's interest in
world music. Gabriel sourced some audio tapes of musicians from Africa,
Bali, and
Aboriginal Australians and was directed to
Thomas Brooman by
David Lord. After conducting an interview with Brooman's publication,
The Bristol Recorder, Gabriel hosted Brooman and other members of the
Bristol Recorder personnel at
Ashcombe House to discuss plans for organising a concert that aligned with their interests in non-western music, including
Pakistani music and
Gamelan. Gabriel, Brooman, and Bob Hooton, who was also involved with
The Bristol Recorder, formed a committee to scout out potential talent and fundraisers for the event, with Brooman being appointed as the festival director. According to the 2002 edition of
Real World Notes, the purpose of WOMAD was to "focus wider UK public attention on the traditional and contemporary arts of non-western cultures". At the request of showground authorities, some of the rock acts such as Gabriel and
Echo and the Bunnymen were instructed to perform at the indoor Showering Pavilion venue, which had a crowd capacity of 4,000 people.
New Musical Express said that a festival benefit album, titled
Music and Rhythm, would be released on 9 July 1982,
Performance Gabriel ultimately performed twice at the Showering Pavilion, with the first set occurring on Friday, which was promoted as a "special festival set of non-album material" with
David Rhodes and
Peter Hammill on guitar,
John Giblin on bass,
Larry Fast on keyboards, and
Jerry Marotta on drums. Members of the drum ensemble Ekomé performed on certain songs in the setlist including "
The Rhythm of the Heat" and "
Biko". On the final day of the festival, Gabriel also performed a second set consisting of four songs, including the debut of "Across the River" with Hamill, Rhodes, Fast, Shankar, and
Stewart Copeland. Fast was tasked with recreating some of the synth sounds from the solo album in a live setting and ultimately settled on bringing a
Fairlight CMI onstage to program these sounds, which he then stored on
disk drives. Several of these programmed sounds were later used for Gabriel's
Plays Live set. Gabriel's backing band donned black
tracksuits for the Showering Pavilion performance and footage from Gabriel's performance of "The Rhythm of the Heat" was used on a
South Bank Show documentary. == Track listing ==