Sunday lives up to its name turns the campsite canvass into series of slow cooking pressure cookers, forcing the festival masses from their tents unexpectedly early.
While the festival's soundsystems begin to limber up, the sleepy crowd starts to disperse from the camping ground, some people disappearing to restock from the supermarket while others head towards the river for a swim - despite the notices warning people not to.
Orchestra Baobab dominated West African music in the Seventies. But they disbanded at the end of the decade and only got back together again last year.
Naturally their arrival at Womad has caused something of a buzz and a full and curious audience crams into the Siam tent to catch their set.
Baobab formed to play in the notorious club of the same name in Dakar and their combination of local styles, Cuban son, and Jamaican reggae became the epitome of west African music of the Seventies - only knocked of its perch by rise of Yousou N'dour and his more boisterous Mbalax sound.
So it's fitting that N'dour has had a hand in the Orchestra's reformation to record a soon to be released LP.
Their sound remains remarkably fresh, full of rippling guitar licks, bubbling bass lines, locked down drum patterns and fantastically clear and powerful vocals.
While it represents a multitude of styles, the spirit of Womad is in roots music, and there is something significantly powerful about seeing traditional instruments fill the arenas with thunderous dance music.
The eleven or so strong Fritic do exactly this, even when they start to parade off the stage using their hand held percussion instruments. Like the Dohl Foundation, Frititi produce raw dance music with a line-up that consists of nothing but African drums.
While the drummers power out tribal rhythms, four dancers provide the top end patterns through ankle bracelets that are swamped by bells.
Much of the weekend's music has emanated from two central musical traditions, one based in Africa the other in Cuba. So a direct mix of artists from the two musical powerhouses was never going to be less than interesting.
The combination of Papa Noel (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Papi Oviedo (Cuba) is extraordinary on several counts.
Both men are in their Sixties, they speak different languages and while Noel comes from the golden era of Congolese rumba, Oviedo finds his heritage in Cuban son.
Their collaboration mingles African guitar lines, drum breaks and vocal chants with the shuffling rhythms of Cuba, all of which is made more enjoyable by the various African and Cuban band members dancing according to their national traditions.
As you'd expect, the percussion breaks are awesome and crying out to be sampled which, provided the two Pap's get a suitably hefty royalty payment, would be no bad thing.
Dressed in a brimmed hat and waistcoat, Kanda Bongo Man is probably the hottest man in the sun-soaked festival. He certainly has the most the most soul filled voice which he puts to good, if a tad minimal, use over his driving brand of Seventies soukous.
Blending Cuban rumba with US funk and disco and local Congo music, soukous has become the standard music of Africa - essentially it's the equivavlent of pop music.
And while Mr Bongo Man might not be as young as he once was (he's been riding these rhythms for 25 years) his performance remains energetic - helped by the presence of a much younger band that look to be in danger of tiring the old man out.
Luckily this doesn't happen and as Kanda and his friends work into the beats, the rhythms begin to flow from the stage and into the crowd, which by now has spilt out the open sides of the arena and into the blistering heat of the sun.
In the distance the Children's carnival parade is beginning to wend its way around the festival site, a great sea of giraffes, swans and giant creations.
And faced with the afternoon blaze there is little choice but to crack open a bottle of severely chilled organic summer ale and be swung along by the bump and grind of Kanda's soukous.
Womad. Summers were made for it.
