Green Man Festival 2010: Rated!

Breacon Beacons, Wales - 20-22 August

United Kingdom | 25 August 2010

Kae Karadelis visits a wet Breacon Beacons the year Green Man Festival turns brown.

Overall - 8/10

Set in the Breacon Beacons in a lush valley surrounded by emerald-coloured misty peaks, Green Man usually conjures up images of a short-lived but sustainable community that sprouts up amidst the heavenly pastures of the Welsh highlands once a year.

In 2010, the misty peaks are replaced by menacing rain clouds and the valley is transformed into a squelchy trough of brown mud, which takes away from the mysticism a fair bit.

Perhaps because the ground looks like a well-trodden wasteland in its muddiness, the features that usually give festival-goers a warm glow such as Einstein's Garden, a pretty walled rose garden decked with activity yurts, science sculptures, craft workshops, a graffiti art installation and a solar powered stage, make less of an impact.

On the other hand, the Green Man Pub – a tent with fake brick walls, beams and picture frames inside – looks particularly inviting in the rain, as do the hot drinks with alcohol in them in the Chai Wallahs tent.

Something noticeably absent from the festival is advertising - Green Man is one of the first independent festivals and remains so. It is no mean feat buying a diet coke in the festival grounds.

Getting there and back - 6/10

It would be lovely if all roads led to the pretty village of Crickhowell in Powys, but they don’t. The festival website warns punters to allow an hour and a half to catch the shuttle bus from the festival site to the nearest train station at Abergavenny, which is six miles away.

Coach travel may seem like a better option, but routes run from just ten different locations, three in Wales, and the rest in the west of England or London.

The car parking, however, is well managed and there is neither a bottle jam getting in nor out like at many other countryside festivals. A warning though, entering Wales from the South via that bridge near Bristol costs a whopping £5.50 – you can get an Indian snack box in the Thali tent for that.

The Site - 9/10

The site itself is located within the privately owned Glanusk Estate that belongs to a family called the Legge-Bourkes.

As a result there are a few uniquely luxurious features, such as the main stage being opposite landscaped hills that form a natural amphitheatre around it. Other indulgences include a courtyard bar and picnic tables near a Victorian stables.

A setback is that the festival might be getting too big for the site according to at least one returnee, who says there are noticeably more punters than in 2009. Once a one-day affair that drew a crowd of 300 in 2003, Green Man has now multiplied beyond recognition into a 13,000-capacity event. By Friday afternoon the campsite is more or less full, with just a few pitching plots available in the outer reaches. Much worse, by Sunday evening food stalls are falling like dominos as they run out of edibles one by one.

Atmosphere - 6/10

No matter how resilient the British public are, a rainy one dampens spirits as well as raincoats. Green Man is known to be quiet, relaxed and family-friendly anyway, but when the persistent drizzle stops for 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday there is marked difference in the energy – and the number of people – onsite.

An awesome shop selling bubble-making paraphernalia compensates for the sobering elements by providing the festival’s dreaminess.

Music - 7/10

Looking at the programme, the words “delicate”, “emotional” and “haunting” appear perhaps a bit too often for a wet and dreary weekend.

The Flaming Lips, however, generate smiles with confetti, balloons, orange-clad dancers and a backdrop that sees some band members enter the stage via a hippy-woman’s vagina. Even so, the set list disappoints, substituting old favourites like ‘Waiting For A Superman’ and ‘Fight Test’ in favour of stuff off their new album.

Similarly, there’s something absent from the audience’s reaction to bearers of Balkan folk Beirut, but rain aside, it’s hard to say why.

The biggest crowd of the weekend is drawn late on Sunday afternoon by Mumford & Sons – the family “headliner” for those who need to scoot at a reasonable hour.

Uppers

Joanna Newsom - 10/10
The American harpist, who is as insanely talented as her lyrics are enchantingly nutty, makes every other musician look like a support act. Accompanied by her classically-trained band of strings, guitar and percussion, and a cathartic downpour, she provides a mesmerisingly atmospheric closure to the festival, with stage lights reflecting on the rain, making it look like a shower of stars against the twinkling of the harp.

John Smith - 9/10
This singer-songwriter “of the John Martyn school” as one reveller put it, has the voice of a long-time smoker and drinker, but the fresh face of an altar-boy. He jests with the crowd, doing a cover of ‘Singing in the Rain’ and ‘Sign Your Name Across my Heart’ by Terence Trent D’Arby accompanied by an equally charismatic double-bassist. By the end, the crowd gets that feeling of having witnessed a small piece of magic, in a tiny corner of a field somewhere far, far away.

Darwin Deez - 9/10
To look at the guy, one might think he’s a too-cool-for-skool New York hipster with a dodgy haircut – think Rabbi curls crossed with ancient Greek garlands – and annoyingly experimental music. But when the band come on with their backs to the crowd and break out into a fun and ever-so-slightly silly, body-popping routine, they are met with sheer delight. Sounding more like West Coast indie folk pop than anything from the Big Apple, they end the crowd-pleasing set by asking which one of the remaining album songs they should play (‘Deep Sea Divers’) and finish with radio hit ‘Radar Detector’.

The Tallest Man On Earth - 9/10
Anyone frustrated by Bob Dylan’s latter-day on-stage indifference will find solace in this show-stealing Swedish songsmith, who is actually rather small (but has a very big voice).

Fanfarlo - 8/10
Maybe it’s because they bring the sun out for the first time on Saturday, or maybe it’s the sweet tune of the mandolin and the horn. The London-based band that takes its name from a work by French novelist Charles Baudelaire immediately lighten the mood. Influences from Beirut and the Arcade Fire are instantly detectable.

Downers

Doves - 5/10
It’s a standard, flat and lethargic set by the Manchester indie veterans, illustrated by naff images of nature on giant screens.

Tindersticks - 4/10
Wincey-faced old man singing into the mic, eyes closed, head tipped back, in a style reminiscent of Michael Bolton in the 80s. What began as a pensive and original performance resulted in an aloof and overly sincere set, hardly worthy of warming the stage for Joanna Newsom.

Besnard Lakes - 2/10
This band only knows how to play one song, and horrifyingly, it’s a drone-y repetitive prog rock number.

Random Events

Right in the middle of the main stage area there is a guest house which is blocked off for the duration of the festival by some fairly unthreatening metal fences. On Friday night, the owner stations himself at one of the upstairs bedroom windows, effectively watching Doves play in his back garden.

On Sunday, a large group of adults and teens of varying age, some riding hobby horses, others dressed as hounds, chase the leader of their party around the festival as he sports a fox outfit. It is perhaps ironic, then, that Glanusk Estate offers hunting and shooting as some of the activities that holiday-makers can do there.

The traditional procession carrying a lit torch to the highest point of the festival in order to the burn a sculpture of the Green Man himself, is led this year by a giant version of one of those retro plastic toy snakes with sideways hinges.