Green Man Festival review: another triumph for the UK’s best independent festival
In the idyllic Bannau Brycheiniog mountains, CMAT proves herself a star, with Underworld soundtracking the hedonistic afterparty
Come to Green Man once, and you’re likely in it for life. Over a scorching hot weekend in the Welsh mountains, a striking number of artists comment on stage that the festival is their favourite in the world. Watch any set across the gorgeous site and you’ll also spot any number of artists bedding in for a full weekend of watching music alongside their own performances.
This level of dedication from both fans and artists comes not only from Green Man’s excellent programming but its lack of sponsorship, green ethos and commitment to bringing bands through from its smallest stages to the biggest. At Green Man 2021, one of the first festivals since the pandemic, Isle of Wight upstarts Wet Leg played the Thursday afternoon in the festival’s tent, hinting at a bright future. Four years later, on the Friday night here, they headlined the main stage.
“The next time we’re here, we’ll be headlining,” says Yard Act frontman James Smith on Sunday afternoon, banking on this trajectory for the Leeds band too. By the previous night’s showing on the main stage, it’s CMAT that can be assured to headline here – and on even bigger stages elsewhere – very soon.
Towards the end of a revelatory summer for the Irish singer-songwriter, she is on dazzling form in front of the biggest main stage crowd Green Man has seen in its 20-plus years. As well as the writer and performer of her perfectly crafted country-pop songs, Ciara Mary Alice Thompson is a comedian and a cultural commentator on stage, with none of it feeling hackneyed. Showing her love for Wales with a ‘Road Rage’ cover (“CMAT stands for C(erys) Mat(thews)” for the night), she draws parallels between the resurgence of the Welsh language and that of her own native tongue in Ireland. The latter has been boosted primarily by Kneecap, who headline here on Thursday with another politically charged, rabble-rousing set.
If CMAT felt like the Saturday headliner in all but billing, the actual closing set from Underworld was the hedonistic afterparty. Across 90 minutes, the rave legends barely let the energy levels drop below pure pandemonium, feeling thrillingly energised as they hammer their way through highlights from a career that goes far deeper than ‘Born Slippy’. It doesn’t make it less special though when Karl Hyde thanks his father for putting him through music college in nearby Cardiff, because “if he didn’t give me that, then we couldn’t give you this,” introducing the iconic opening bars of the best set closer imaginable.
While it’s easy to feel a million miles away from the real world in the stunning mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog, Green Man manages to feel like both an escape and a reconnection with activism at once. Calls for a free Palestine are more consistent and widespread than at any other festival bar Glastonbury, and the festival’s pleasingly large contingent of queer and trans performers – Jasmine.4.t, Jacob Alon, Divorce and beyond – consistently comment on its warm and welcoming nature for the community.
It’s also a festival that platforms and lifts up sonic weirdness. American indie-rock icon MJ Lenderman plays for 90 minutes with his excellent band The Wind mid-bill on Saturday afternoon, while the likes of London octet caroline, jazz-turned-metal-prog band oreglo and US noise rock band YHWH Nailgun are treated like superstars. There are also second chances offered, with the Cardiff-formed Los Campesinos! playing Green Man for the first time since 2008 after a decade of existing and thriving outside of the traditional music industry. Their packed out and rapturously received set in the Far Out tent proves worthy justification.
If there’s a snag to an otherwise perfect festival, it’s from an unusually large number of technical issues that pepper the weekend’s music. caroline start their Saturday evening set late and struggle through monitor issues on the Walled Garden, while the same stage the previous day sees Jacob Alon thrown off course by a guitar detuned by the blistering sun.
Both manage to provide brilliance beyond the limitations though – Alon ditches their guitar for a spine-tingling a capella rendition of ‘Fairy in a Bottle’ to close their set – and it all succeeds from a sense of the artists and audience being in it together. Only Wunderhorse truly succumb to the obstacles thrown in their way, with frontman Jacob Slater smashing his misbehaving amp and walking off stage over 20 minutes early on Friday night, but even their set is given a razor-sharp energy and intrigue through the issues.
It’s a rare and special atmosphere to witness, and in a summer defined by questions over festival ownership, political boycotts and dwindling ticket sales, to be at Green Man – a festival that sold out its 25,000 tickets in a single hour with no line-up announced this year – feels like a victory and a blueprint for independence and community moving forwards.