Keep Calm and Green Man 2012

A Green Man Festival 2012 review

Right, so I've just got back from this year's Greenman Festival and have washed off the mud from my legs. Here's what it was like....

Despite to torrential rain throughout Thursday night and most of Friday and briefly on Saturday morning and Sunday morning, the weather was pretty good. Seriously. The sun came out a lot, it got too hot at times and you could sit around and enjoy the music...as long as you could find somewhere dry to sit. I've been to festivals where the conditions have been much worse than this.

Anyway, here's some of the quite/very/exceptionally good stuff I caught...

So hip it hurts, Toy played an excellent set of Krautgothrock on the Far Out stage. Hopefully being flavour of the month with the hipsters won't result in a backlash and they can become as successful as anyone melding the sound of the Horrors with early Stereolab can ever be - like all the great bands, they make two chords go a long way and it has to be said, they are infinitely better than Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong ever were.

Friday's rain stopped in time for the return of Dexys who, despite the futile shouts for Geno (this isn't some "I love the 80s" return) performed the most remarkable set of the weekend - the nearest a gig has ever come to nearly making me cry for a long time. Rewriting some of the lyrics to old songs and setting them alongside the highlights of the new album, this was more a play set to music than a gig, revolving around the mental rehabilitation of Kevin and his ability/inability to fall in love, with vocals shared by Kevin (the male lead) with Pete Williams (his best friend/father) and Madeleine Hyland (the love interest).

The Junior Boys were probably just glad to play in a tent and not outside in the torrential rain as they did last time they played at the festival. They did good.

A couple of hours before Mogwai's headlining set on Friday I had the good fortune to meet Stuart and Barry from the band in the Rough Trade shop, so I quickly went and bought the San Pedro 7" and got them to sign it like the fanboy I am. Anyway, the band did exactly what you would want from them on a festival headline slot, with songs from last year's awesome Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will sitting comfortably alongside everything else in the set with the exception of the peerless Mogwai Fear Satan, whose thunder made the valley shake. It's just a shame it wasn't raining at this point as this is probably some of the best music you can set to stormy weather.

What was missing from the festival was Post Modernism, Lover's Rock, a middle aged white man rapping and oblique lyrical references to Immanuel Kant. Fortunately, Scritti Politti were on hand to set that right. I'd always understood that Green Gartside had a real aversion to playing live, but he showed himself to be a brilliant front man - witty, charming and self effacing. Yes, a lot of people were waiting for them to play the "hits" (they obliged), but the later material is equally strong, with the one NEW new song (which he hasn't finished writing yet) being one of the highlights of the gig.

Van Morrison was 'headlining' the Mountain Stage on the Saturday night. The funny thing was, he was on at 7:15pm, with 2 bands on after him. Anyway, whatever the reasons behind this decision his music is ideal for a sunny Saturday evening rather than late at night. Not that I saw any of his set, but it sounded great from back at the tent.

Field Music played their usual quality set of mini symphonies in 7/8 time. I've raved about them in a previous blog, so I won't say any more here.

tUnE-yArDs were another highlight, mainly to see quite how Merrill Garbus can transform the multi layered vocals/instruments/effects of her albums into the live setting. And the answer is via a live band, probably a Loop Station, her charisma and a lovely orange dress. It was quite brilliant and one of those true festival Sunday-feel-good sets. Mind you, it does you no harm when people get this view of your band on stage...

Other bands worth a mention include Alt-J, Jonathan Richman, King Charles, Ghostpoet and Dark Dark Dark and that guy dressed as a spaceman with his own mini-stage.

So, yeah, it was alright really.