This was an odd but intriguing idea for a concert. Two sets of musicians, each from a desert region, were invited to share a stage and collaborate, to explore what their styles had in common. One group were from the West African state of Mali and were already known to British audiences, while the other were from the Thar desert of Rajasthan, India, and weren't all even known to each other before being brought together for this project.
Amazingly, it almost worked. The Rajasthan group who opened the show were in many ways the more interesting, simply because their music has had so little exposure among non-Asian audiences.
There were seven musicians, each apparently hand-picked from remote villages in the region, sitting cross-legged on a carpet. One briefly blew into a flute-like instrument; others played bowed, stringed instruments such as the kamaycha and sarangi. Then there was percussion from a small hand-drum, and from the flamboyant figure of Kheta Khan, who added wild flourishes and embellishment on the khadtal, the local form of castanets.
They started slowly, taking solos and playing in groups of two or three at a time. Then the musicians gradually built up to a series of rousing songs in which four singers traded gutsy, declamatory vocals against the wailing string backing.
Next on stage came Afel Bocoum from Mali, a country on the southern edge of the Sahara where the music echoes anything from the blues to reggae and Celtic styles, and which must surely have been a focal point for any such musical migration. Bocoum has had an eventful career. He spent years playing guitar alongside the great African blues guitarist Ali Farka Toure, and this year collaborated with Damon Albarn and Gorillaz on the experimental Mali Music project.
In his own band, Alkibar, who performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, he matched guitars and bass against traditional instruments like the njarka or the "desert violin". While this provided a link with the Rajasthan line-up, Bocoum's musical approach was very different. Instead of declamatory ballads and dance songs, he played and sang drifting, mesmeric pieces that reflected the wide-open spaces of his homeland.
Bocoum is still more of a reliable second-in-command than a charismatic band-leader, but he is an easy-going figure who clearly enjoys collaboration and experimentation. For the final half-hour of the show he faced his biggest challenge yet. The Rajasthan musicians reappeared to join with Alkibar so that Bocoum was faced across the stage by those exuberant Indian singers.
They made it work - just about - by trading vocal phrases against a rousing backing of guitars and assorted desert strings, and though the laid-back Bocoum was inevitably out-sung by the Rajasthan team, both sides deserved their standing ovation.
