Green Man Festival – Brecon Beacons, Wales 20/21/22 August 2010

Words by Tom Holcroft & Leah Pritchard
Photographs by Leah Pritchard

If there is one thought that prevails amongst the mountain of experiences that constitutes Green Man 2010, it is that Wales is really, really wet. It is only when you have to endure three days of walking in what feels like melted chocolate mousse that you realise just how different a festival can become in the rain. Despite this, Green Man once again proves itself to be one of the most imaginative and unique venues for both local and international, up-and-coming and veteran artists to perform for audiences of all ages.

Our festival experience begins on the main stage with the cheerful Caitlin Rose and her accompanying bassist and guitarist. Singing about the effects of acid rain on jeans, she seems the ideal candidate to carry the country music torch into the new decade and, with her highly enviable Nashville singing voice, is hard not to adore as the rainclouds close in.

Sipping a pint of organic local cider, we enjoy the comical mixture of ironic and relevant weather-related music being played through the PA in between sets. ‘Walking on Sunshine’, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ and ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ seem to cheer everyone up.

Fionn Regan is a bit of a disappointment. Rocking his new indie-kid look (sunglasses, headband) he begins with a few acoustic songs that seem dull under the overcast sky. He then brings on his band to fill out the songs, which they do, but in an entirely unimaginative, rock ‘n’ roll way. He redeems himself by finishing with a brilliant solo acoustic performance of ‘Be Good or Be Gone’. The highlights of Regan’s set are the moments where the rhythm of his fingerpicking drift slightly out of time or his voice breaks under the strain of the higher notes – the times where his songs seem, only momentarily, human and vulnerable, rather than merely carbon copies of his recordings.

As the skies darken, a smartly dressed John Grant takes to the grand piano to play his brilliantly epic songs. With Grant’s musical precision and passion, and the ethereal blue and red lights he is under, the scene is set for the kind of atmosphere you can only enjoy at a really special gig. After a song or two, he is joined by a guitarist/keyboard player who becomes the topic of fierce debate due to his playing controversial spacey sounds on the synth over Grant’s classical piano. To the relief of those of us who think it is fantastic, they are soon the victims of many a “Shhhh!” In fact, the audience’s participation in John Grant’s set isn’t matched again in the entire festival, with a guy near me even singing the harmonies to the a capella finale, ‘Chicken Bones’.

Judging by the volume of the cheers when Beirut’s name is brought up by the MC, and the girl in the front row who is chewing her nails as if they are her first meal in days, the fact that Doves (who receive an equally loud reaction of groans when their name is mentioned) have the headline slot is irrelevant – the real stars of Friday night are Zach Condon’s Beirut.

Unfortunately, the band fall victim to their own, overwhelming, heart-in-your-mouth crescendos. Their Balkan folk paint-by-numbers is far too evident during the songs that lack them, and whilst the snare rolls and harmonised brass might also follow a blueprint too closely on paper, the moments where they allow the music to explode with these elements hurl your body into a joyous mess of shivers and hairs stood on end. Although the consensus in the front half of the audience seems to be that the entire set has this effect, there are only so many flugelhorn solos one woman can take, and the songs lack substance on the whole.

We succumb to the rain early on Friday night – the closest we get to experiencing Doves’ set is seeing the rain illuminated by various coloured lights from the inside of our tent and a rumbling bass sound in the distance.

We decide to take a stroll into the main festival arena on Saturday morning, which turns out to be a great idea because it means we’re part of the lucky few who get to see The Flaming Lips’ soundcheck. They play ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’, and then a grinning Wayne Coyne leads us early birds through a brief tai-chi session.

First up on Saturday are Islet, Green Man’s own Keyser Söze – a band about which everyone I talk to seems to know no more than just something about. The anticipation for an act none of us have seen or heard more than a few minutes of is, in hindsight, unwarranted – nevertheless, even with these heightened levels of expectation, they still manage to blow us away. To describe the elements of the performance would be to ignore what unidentifiable force makes them come together to produce one of the most exciting, the most energetic – in fact, for anyone who has seen Bristol’s Zun Zun Egui, imagine them in a parallel universe… And if that thought alone is causing your brain circuitry to overheat, you’re getting close to imagining how Islet’s polyrhythmic drumming, 20 second screaming matches and liquid movements between time signatures make those of us in the Far Out Tent feel on Saturday morning, forgetting our hangovers and forgetting the rain outside and vaguely remembering how performances from Gang Gang Dance and PVT can make you feel, which fans of these bands will know are not comparisons to be taken lightly.

Although some of the warmth of Avi Buffalo’s ATP set earlier this year might have been lost with the departure of keyboardist Rebecca Coleman, to focus on what they are lacking would be to do them a great injustice. It is no more evident than in their penultimate song ‘What’s in It For?’ that at their best, the alarmingly dark lyrics and double-rainbow (sorry) -inducingly uplifting melodies boil down to a teeth-grinding, fist-clenching tenseness that can only be relieved by singing along at great volume.

As we wander from stage to stage throughout the weekend, often fruitlessly trying to find something that stirs any kind of emotion, it becomes evident that there is an appeal to live music that demands nothing more of the audience member than a sort of distanced armchair psychology. It’s the feeling that whilst the band’s presence on-stage is preferable to their absence, it is more enjoyable locating those few who are genuinely into it and wondering how much and why than actually taking pleasure in the music.

The second act after Islet to truly dispell any such thoughts are These New Puritans. It is the first time a band take the initiative to say fuck it to polite invitations and grab hold of the audience, dragging us into a flurry of chainmail and unironically hideous typefaces and packing every available space in the tent with their pseudo-rap and unconventional dance beats. The lighting in the Far Out Tent, a veritable pain in the arse for photographers throughout the weekend, suddenly makes sense, as TNP fire through what I can only think to describe as what it would sound like if John Williams were told to soundtrack a Haunted Mansion ride in the style of Liars. If this comparison sounds totally ridiculous, it is because it is the only way I can think to describe how you could simultaneously evoke the feeling of electronic jolts in your chest whilst floating through dizzying cinematic heights.

Although it feels like skulky, hand-in-pockets music when heard through headphones, there is a striking confidence to their set, even within a festival bill that is dominated by acoustic guitars and heartfelt lyrics. It is exactly this lack of apology on unfamiliar territory that makes TNP an indisputable highlight of the weekend.

Evening comes, and it’s time to talk politics and love with Billy Bragg. The veteran of the left wing keeps the audience entertained with a setlist filled with classics and some truly hilarious banter. He introduces one of his Mermaid Avenue songs (‘Ingrid Bergman’) with an insight into Woody Guthrie’s dirty mind, using words such as ‘tumescence’ to “help some parents avoid difficult conversations on the drive home.” Despite making a few audience members cringe a little with a couple of newer songs about the banking crisis, all in all it is hard to fault the ‘Bard of Barking’ on a great performance. He ends with the sing-along ‘A New England’ and a new take on Marley’s ‘One Love’ (“Let’s drop the debt and it’ll be alright.”)

As we wait for the final act of Saturday night, I keep remembering a conversation I overheard earlier in the day between a Father and his two very young children: “Who are we seeing today…!?” All three: “THE FLAMING LIIIPS!” If you can imagine the excitement in those children’s voices and then multiply it by 500, that’s how it feels when Wayne Coyne appears on-stage to warn the audience about how intense the show will be. He does not specifically mention travelling across the audience in a human bubble, singing from the shoulders of a man in a bear suit, a giant screen showing psychedelically-coloured close-ups of his face, confetti cannons or masses of large balloons – but these are all things we will see within the next 75 minutes.

The problem with the set is that whilst it is CRAZY, it is still predictable. Although every (totally batshit) component leaves you beaming ear to ear, the theatrics are far more important than the songs during a performance like this – once you’re over the fact there is a man with hands as big as his torso shooting lasers into the sky, there is very little to concentrate on. It is only at the end of their set, during ‘Do You Realize??’ that the elements come together to create something truly magical. As Coyne sings “everyone you know someday will die”, the clouds above lit up by spotlights, he achieves what performers are constantly striving for – an audience who are listening to and believing every single word. The screens to the side of the stage show a young man in the front row weeping uncontrollably as the song finishes.

Sunday begins humbly with The Singing Adams giving us an easy start to the day. With honest songs about growing old and self-deprecating humour, Stephen Adams is possibly the most down-to-earth of all the frontmen at Green Man – he seems just like a thoughtful, friendly bloke at the pub.

It is too easy to start watching an act like Darwin Deez with a cynical mindset. Deez, whose curly hair held down by signature headband seems to be far more known than any of his songs, acts as Pied Piper to every 12-15 year old at the festival, who appear so quickly and in such numbers that I could swear the spacetime continuum has been defied. Whilst I come away from the set knowing as little of his music as I had beforehand, the band – two guitarists, a bassist and drummer – melt the hearts of those of us who stick around at the main stage, if only because they drop their instruments in-between every song to participate in choreographed group dances set to pop and R&B classics.

There is a feeling to Girls‘ Album that would have you believe they would be a ramshackle live act a la Wavves – turning up 20 minutes late, purposely missing out their biggest hits but playing the same song twice by accident, off their face on drugs. The reality is quite the opposite, and seems to have been moving in an even more professional direction since they played Bristol in October last year. If anything, the band veer on the side of relying too much on the quality of the songs, although judging by the brilliance of their debut record and the new songs they are playing tonight, they are quite within their rights to do so. Though there is a connection between the band and the audience during songs like ‘Laura’ and ‘Lust for Life’ that most other bands have lacked, by the end of the set there is very little to say about the peformance – any positive comments about the songwriting could just as easily have been made from behind a computer, without ever having to step foot in the mud.

On the main stage, Tindersticks help put the crowd in the right mindset for Joanna Newsom with subtle, introspective songs that put me in that rare kind of melancholy mood which is actually enjoyable. Playing to a moonlit crowd who are busy setting off Chinese lanterns, Stuart A. Staples seems at once both proud and shy. They could perhaps do with a shorter set, as people are beginning to become restless when the rain comes down during the somewhat repetitive ‘Black Smoke’.

When Roy Harper was opening up for Joanna Newsom in London earlier this year, he introduced her with a line to the effect of “you are about to see one of the most beautiful women on this planet playing some of the most beautiful music ever written.” Most of the time cliches like these would not be worth remembering but for Joanna Newsom, it often feels like they are the only way to honestly describe her. It reminds me of that children’s writing exercise where you’d explain what Earth is like to an alien – you’d want them to see this, you’d be proud of what we’ve achieved. I don’t want it to seem like the whole audience are simultaneously having some kind of epiphany – it’s not Neil Young at Massey Hall or Dylan at Newport this time around – but I just want to say that it has the potential to be, and to say that it is just a great show would be to deny the existence of the magic that makes those shows so significant. Perhaps I am suffering from a delayed festival hangover or review fatigue but it feels like anything more I could say would be superfluous to what Roy so concisely managed to express.