Green Man Festival 2008
Just returned from a fantastic weekend at The Green Man Festival in the Brecon beacons. Glanusk Park in Crickhowell was the location, a really picturesque spot for a festival, surrounded by Welsh mountains.
Green Man is a great sized festival, (10,000 capacity) with a main stage, a tent (folky dokey) and a small stage (green man café). The food was great enjoying a nice meal each day for around £6 and reasonably priced cider to boot (£3 a pint).
The festival had a really great atmosphere and despite the rain it was a really good weekend. Thursday and Friday we were lucky enough to have sunshine and it was great! It then rained all day Saturday before a bit of a relief Sunday morning and then more rain, to be expected the fields turned to mud and it made had trudging for the rest of the weekend.
Green Man seems to have a reputation of a folk festival but the only real folk I remember seeing was pentangle, with the majority of the bands being Laurie’s newly defined Genre of Topshop rock (a sort of overly trendy electro, new rave shouty indie – along way from folk).
Overall the music wasn’t great but was more than made up for by an incredible performance by The National. Standing in the front row The National were amazing, we were in prime position to enjoy the drunken stumbling of The Nationals lead singer, Matt Berninger as he staged around the stage almost falling off, as he sung the last lines of The Nationals final song ‘Mr November’ he jumped down into the crowd and finished singing the song in the mud whilst being mobbed by adoring fans.
Having just watched 2 minutes of that wanker Rhys Evans with his band The Peth, The National made a mockery of his attempts to be a rock and roll front man.
Top performances?
- The National
- Supper Furry Animals
- Richard Thompson
- Drive By Truckers
- Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
- Caribou
- Iron & Wine
- King Creosote
October 30th, 2008 at 4:21 am
What is it about folk festivals and mud?
December 16th, 2008 at 4:37 am
And to think seven years ago I flew all the way to Chicago to see the Drive By Truckers, ended up getting married and emigrating to the USA . If only I had been a little more patient.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am
haha, funny how things work out
December 26th, 2008 at 3:15 am
I have heard some of Drive By Truckers music which is pretty good. The others are all new for me but will do a google search to get some more info.
thank you
November 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I had planned to go to this festival, but at the last minute I fractured my leg – I was very disappointed indeed.
Not sure I want to ask what is in those suspiciously orange coloured bottled
lol!!!