1 post tagged “green man”
I went to four festivals last year - All Tomorrow's parties, Summer Sundae, Bestival, and the Green Man festival. The latter two I reviewed for the Morning Star, so I thought I'd belatedly post what I had to say. I am King of Zeitgeist! First up comes the Green Man festival, which was my FAVE festival of the year, despite the rain, getting marooned in Abervgavenny, and various other comedy mishaps. In fact, I'd say that this festival was the highlight of my 2006 full stop, or 'peroid' as the Yanks say when they're not shoving fried chicken down their neck while shooting children.
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The journey to the Green Man festival was portentous: a midnight mini-bus journey through the Welsh countryside in the pouring rain, while a bearded gentleman with an unnerving smile played sinister glockenspiel music on a wind-up radio.
As an introduction to the festival it was an eerily appropriate one. Taking place in a new location this year – a beautiful old estate encircled by the foothills of the Brecon Beacons – the Green Man is like holidaying in a slightly skewed parallel musical universe; one where Dylan never went electric, Donavan is still alive, and where the beards have inherited the earth.
The festival begins wonderfully on Friday lunchtime with angry nu-folk superstar Chris T-T, who juxtaposes bitingly angry political songs - on one strikingly relevant song on the fate of civilians caught up in international ‘situations’, he spits: “What kind of Christian are you? What kind of Jew are you? What kind of Muslim are you?” - with charming ditties about dying hedgehogs and giraffes plotting their escape from captivity.
In the lovely courtyard of the Green Man Café, the sun briefly emerges from the Welsh mist to greet Benjamin Weatherill, an impeccably dressed young chap who woos the hushed throng with covers of old music-hall favourites, like old gramophone records with the hiss digitally removed. His own songs are atmospheric, Simon & Garfunkel affairs of heartbreak and murder, but he truly enchants the crowd with a Gorge Formby medley, his voice as sweet as gently shattering sugar glass.
“We’ve done dragons, we’ve done pixies – now it’s time for scarecrows”. Featuring flutes, kaftans, bongos, plastic swords and far-out apparel, the pre-industrial prog of Circulus is an uplifting and unpretentious melange that gets the long hairs skipping. But behind the cod-wackiness, the tunes hark back to driving 70s rock: Eagles in sheep’s clothing, perhaps?
Following on from the pagan rave, The Aliens provoke a shout of ‘Who Are You?’ from one cidered-up member of the crowd. Sadly, the answer is that they’re The Beta Band without genius main-man Steve Mason, and their disappointing, straight-ahead psychedelic rock sends the vast majority of the crowd off in search of ale and pies.
Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys comes onstage dressed as a monk to a moog version of ‘Venus’, sits next to a table of plastic budgies, and throws a keyboard into the crowd. Playing songs from last year’s solo album, he helpfully translates songs into English for the crowd, introduces us to Synthia the keyboard and Trevor the portable bagpipe machine, and sings with heart-breaking beauty and soul. The finest moment comes with “Yr Atal Genhedlaeth”, which he builds, live, tape loop by tape loop: first laying down beatbox percussion, then adding several vocal lines and harmonies, then Trevor, then further percussion with a matchbox, before sitting back, cigar in hand, as his voice and song echo back around him. Gruff seems to have rediscovered the sparky, make-it-up-as-you-go-along spirit the Super Furries lost when their studio budget got too comfortable.
Speaking of errant Welsh genius, ’s Zygotic Mynci would have been fitting headliners for this festival, seeing as they were crazed folk wizards from the Welsh mountains. But we get ex-frontman Euros Childs in the Saturday afternoon drizzle instead, and it’s a fair substitute: Euros has survived the break-up of Gorkys with his knack for uplifting, Brian Wilson pop-psychedelia intact, and song-of-the-summer ‘Costa Rica’ nearly – but nearly – entices the sun out from behind the clouds.
Micah P. Hinson trades in world-weary noir-country – his life is a rich tapestry of jail, drugs and bankruptcy. His desperately sad, barely-alt country songs are sung with unquestionably sincerity, but he’s a tad too trad and unengaging for one to really feel his pain.
Silver Jews are a different proposition. Hitherto reclusive Dave Berman has his unfeasibly beautiful wife on bass for emotional support, and he drawls out his songs with true sadness: this is country-rock salvation sung with the exhausted sigh of a belatedly reprieved death-row drifter.
As the weekend pagans pack up their love beads and head back to their jobs in advertising, Juana Molina helps the Sunday afternoon doze drift past with folksy coffee table inoffensiveness. The following Archie Bronson Outfit offer an interesting contrast; their urgent scuzzy garage-blues does its best to stir the monged-out crowd, but the singer’s voice strains like the flooded engines of the departing VW camper vans.
Festival organisers It’s Jo & Danny are an unexpected treat. It’s good to see the bedroom folk couple still going strong – Lemon Jelly, for one, owe plenty to Jo & Danny’s maudlin, mandolin-led love-folk groove.
Ex-Gorky’s man #2 of the weekend comes in the form of Richard James, whose new songs show the gifts he brought to his previous band: beautifully arranged, driving, Welsh country soul pop songs interspersed with gentle, finger-picking balladry.
The smiles are also wide at the main stage for ex-Catatonia front-woman Cerys Matthews, recently returned to the motherland after her post-fame breakdown and retreat to , with a suitcase full of country-tinged folksy sketches of love and regret.
Calexico kick off their festival-closing set with a lullaby for ‘all the little perishes’, which is fitting for a weekend so dominated by increasingly feral children. Their tex-mex trumpet-laden sound is as beguiling as ever, but they seem to have been shoe-horned into every festival line-up this summer. A more appropriate finale takes place at the Green Man café, where the ancient, legendary Wizz Jones plays traditional, sax-sodden folk to a traditional, drink-sozzled crowd.
Nu-Hippy Musings
Overheard at Green Man…
“I don’t see what’s so great about organic chicken”
“You know, I think everyone’s a little bit telepathic…”
“Of course man, we’re all programmed for procreation…”
“They found this spot on my back, and they press it… and all the pain disappears. It’s amazing.”
Who it's for...
Ostensibly a folk festival, Green Man caters for eclectic music lovers who think that has sold out, beards of every description, hippie parents who want to catch some vibes while letting their brood run free and become one with the mud, and anyone who appreciates a laid-back and respectful festival in a beautiful setting.
