ozom There are some evil little beasties at this festival that suck blood from you and leave you with a grapefruit-sized swelling. The medics translated the name as “gnat”, but these things are no gnats. They’re some kind of super-strength vampire flies. And when they coordinate an attack by biting you all around the ankle, it also cripples you. I had to hobble to see Ozomatli, limping like I was wounded in some war. I wondered if I’d be able to stand through the whole set.

It took 3 or 4 seconds of the show before I was jumping around. They opened with “Ya Viene”, and played it even more furiously than usual. The crowd was bouncing and so was I. Anything less would have been letting the vampire flies win.

The first sign of the new album was “Malagassay Shock”, another big party tune to get the crowd romping.

On a tangent, I’ve heard Muse described as the best live band in the world. I saw them two days ago and it was just some blokes on a stage with lasers. Ozomatli are the best live band in the world. They take up the whole stage, they throw instruments at each other whether or not they need to. They don’t let the set go for two songs before pulling out something to get you jumping to. And they have crowd interaction that nobody comes close to.

The only foot Ozomatli ever put wrong was to get Jack Johnson singing a song about how being rich doesn’t necessarily make you an arsehole. J-Lo already wrote a song about that, and we didn’t believe her either. Jack’s not here today, but we still get the tune, with Raul and Asdrubal on vocals. At least it’s more uptempo here.

Raul, the shaven-headed guitarist-singer, then decides to rock out, going all metal on us as the rest of the band make devil-horn fingers. There’s a time and a place for rock guitar solos, and this seems like both. It fits the moment and the crowd loves it.

Next up, “Nada For Free”, from the new album. It’s a great party tune, and likely to be repeated tonight at the Crystal Palace. It also sounds like it was written for Biz Markie, with bouncy rap about a girl kicking you in the nuts. We get a stripped-down, heavier take on “Saturday Night”. Rapper Justin starts surfing the crowd as a taster for what’s to come. Ozomatli, as always, end the set by taking their instruments into the crowd and jamming. How are they going to top that tonight?