The Green Man Festival, set down in a glorious South Wales valley, has grown from a small, folk-dedicated festival into something much bigger and more wide-ranging. Other festivals may claim to be the most relaxed and easy-going, but if an aggro-free weekend of quality music in the great outdoors is what you’re after, Green Man is hard to beat.
This is a pretty long attempt to sum up the festival, but there was so much quality on show I simply had to cram it in!
Photos are by Mark Salmon – www.marksalmonphoto.co.uk
Friday
The first day of the festival dawned brightly, and it was left to competition winning opening band Will and the People to kick off the main stage. They couldn’t have suited the setting better, their energetic Supergrass-gone-reggae vibes warming things up nicely. They were followed soon after by the deep, lush Americana of Other Lives, who sounded strangely at home in a rural Welsh setting despite their widescreen, Morricone in a dust bowl feel.
But the first band to make a big impression on the discerning crowd were up and coming Scots Admiral Fallow, who hit the Far Out stage hard in the mid afternoon sun. Crashing through selections from their excellent Boots Met My Face record, along with some intruiging new songs, particularly the crashing Paper Trench. They drew a huge response from the packed tent, frontman Louis Abbott swigging from a whisky bottle between belting out his heartfelt melodies.
The variety of acts is one of Green Man’s strengths, and fans could choose between the Mew-esque pomp of Danes Treefight For Sunlight, the bare bones blues howls of Cave Singers or the twangtastic 60’s surf pop of Y Niwl. Those craving some singer-songwriter vibes could enjoy James Vincent McMorrow’s delicate songs and a falsetto to rival Jeff Buckley.
Conor J O’Brien’s diminutive stature belies his powerful, passionate abilities as a performer. Villagers filled the main stage field on Friday night, closing with a powerful stomp through Ship Of Promises. The Far Out stage was headlined by funky noisemakers Holy Fuck, another band at odds with the festival’s image, but well received regardless. Their strobe ‘n’ smoke heavy set wowed the busy tent.
Main Stage headliners Explosions In The Sky provided another diversion in style, their epic guitar symphonies swerving gracefully from crushing power to delicate melody. The set leaned heavily on new record Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, but the glorious melodies of First Breath After Coma were the real highlight.
Saturday
Day Two was an occasionally wet affair, which did nothing to subdue the mood on site. A seated crowd were bewitched by Laura J Martin early in the afternoon, her virtuoso flute playing and ingenious use of loops and samples showing some incredible talent. Her cover of 90s reggae-pop tune Tease Me was a fun highlight.
Those chilling out on the hills around the main stage were treated to the blues stomp of She Keeps Bees, whose strong sultry melodies got people up and moving. The excellent Dry The River followed, their twisting, Americana-flecked sound giving some fuzzed up and heavy climaxes a la Wye Oak.
Fans of 80’s shoegazing had much to enjoy on Saturday, 2 bands in particular offering contrasting takes on the style. Londoners 2.54 gave a vision of The Cure if Josh Homme had been on the production desk, while Anglophiles Wild Nothing combined 60’s jangle with Smiths-ish melody to great effect.
Josh T. Pearson was hyped massively around the festival site before his Far Out stage performance, his black-dark songs drawing a surpisingly large following. But he was not without humour, before his final song he quipped, “OK, y’all wanna hear a sad one or a sad one?” His powerful guitar sound filled the tent, and he had a masterful way with dynamics. A spellbinding performance.
Polar Bear followed, the London based future jazz band whipping up a storm of improvised insanity that fried the heads of the Far Out crowd. Drummer Sebastian Rochford was a whirl of activity, propelling the band forward with effortless ease.
Contrast their head-spinning complexity with the MOR pop of Noah And The Whale, and you have another example of Green Man’s wide-ranging appeal. Their pop edge drew a massive crowd, but if you use Bohemian Rhapsody as your intro music, you need to back it up with some bombast, something they sadly lacked.
It was left to Fleet Foxes to close Saturday, and drawing on their dense new record Helplessness Blues saw them turn in a special spectacle. Whenever the songs stripped back to those now-ubiquitous harmonies, the silence in the huge field was stunning. They reworked tunes from their first record, particularly a beautiful version of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song. Frontman Robin Pecknold seemed thrilled at the conclusion of the show, a huge grin across his face and everyone in the crowd.
Sunday
The final day of Green Man opened with blazing sunshine, and not a few headaches and hangovers after some late night action from the Warp Records DJs the night before. Musical relief was offered by a variety of early afternoon acts, from the noisy psych of Folks, the bright uke-pop of Under The Driftwood Tree or the easy-going melodicism of Matthew & The Atlas.
But the first act to really catch the attention on the final day was dubstep kid James Blake, whose thunderous bass sound shook the main stage to its foundations. His audience was decidedly younger than many other acts, but drew a lot of interested observers keen to see what the hype was about. The Bon Iver comparisons may be a little premature, but Blake proved he has immense potential.
Laura Marling has been a Green Man regular in recent years, and her set this year as the sun sank over the hills showed just how far she has come. New songs from her forthcoming record showed a sense of emotional potency, particularly the Joni-Mitchell-esque Don’t Ask Me Why. She still produces folk music of the highest order, but it’s only when she plays Alas I Cannot Swim from her debut that she directly fills that tag. The groan as she announced her last song signalled just how much they crowd wanted her to play on.
Another brilliant discovery at this year’s festival weas the trippy dissonance of Suuns, whose bleeping experimentations recalled ‘Third’ era Portishead and PJ Harvey over a throbbing Krautrock pulse. The weekend was completed back on the main stage by Sam Beam and Iron & Wine, who spun songs out in lengthy, funk and reggae infused jams. That Beam made his name as a folk singer would be unnoticeable to those who had not seen him before, such was the distance from that genre he has travelled.
This was a festival that it would be impossible not to enjoy, however casual or dedicated a music fan you could be. Not a dodgy bog or unhappy punter to be seen.
I, for one, shall definitely be returning.
Tom Reed
