News / / 22.08.13

GREEN MAN

Glanusk, Wales | August 15th-18th

After 11 years, Green Man has perfected a trick which was impressive back when it was a tiny, low key affair, and is nothing short of astounding now that 17,000 people roll in for four days: it’s a festival that feels like it really means it. 

Partly it’s because the grinding corporate sponsorship of other festivals this size is completely absent – replaced by pagan statues and symbols. Plus, despite having acres of spare space, punters aren’t crammed in like sardines, so the messy can get messier and the mellow can stay mellow. But most of all, it’s the line-up: a fiercely independent and authentic list of artists who seemed to relish playing to a festival audience that wasn’t comprised of off-duty estate agents on a lads weekend away.

Friday started with a bang, with newcomers Fist of the First Man crafting a jagged, angular, rhythmic riot, sounding something like At The Drive-In strapped to a breakbeat backbone. A sun-soaked crowd on the main stage absorbed the ethereal, subtle orchestration of Julia Holter, sounding supernaturally beautiful in the weird, wild Welsh hills. And when headliners Fuck Buttons took to the Far Out tent, their searing, industrial, tribal rhythms put any lingering doubts that Green Man is a ‘folk’ festival firmly to bed. Strangely, and frustratingly, sound levels were drastically cut for Ewan Pearson and Andrew Weatherall’s late night soiree, leaving their sets sounding pedestrian and workaday.

Julia Hotler 2 credit danielmackie

Saturday’s line-up would have put a festival twice its size to shame. The Horrors, although hardly pushing boundaries, showed why they are held in such high regard with the synth-led 80s stylings of stone-cold anthem Still Life. Villagers put on perhaps the performance of the weekend, Connor O’Brien’s dark, wistful storytelling stretching a narrative web across thorny branches of rhythm and guitar. Jon Hopkins eschewed his twinkly, piano-led material for a set of fizzing, spluttering, stomping electronic raucousness. And as late night turned to early morning, and the crowd by the campfire began to thin out, Nathan Fake launched an armada of gleaming, strobing, techno fireflies to keep the dawn chorus at bay.

The Horrors1 credit danielmackie

Sunday bought the soft, soothing pleasures of Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit, the gentle, swooping but angular alt-pop of Local Natives, the curtain-closing high-jinx of the burning of the giant wooden Green Man and the super-styled sounds of Daniel Avery. All hail, then, Green Man: a genuinely independent, diverse and eclectic weekend of noise and people in a field, and still, after all these years, the circuit’s best kept secret.

 

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greenman.net

Words: Adam Corner

Main Photo: Polly Thomas

Live Photos: Daniel Mackie

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