Green Man festival review: A beacon of hope in troubling times
Wildfires in the area threatened the 2026 edition of the Welsh event, but its devoted community of artists and fans made it yet another triumph
While the unique and gorgeous Green Man festival was being assembled for its 2026 edition, disaster was on the doorstep. Wildfires caused by an ongoing summer drought raged through Bannau Brycheiniog (formerly Brecon Beacons), with the traditional burning of the green man himself at the end of each festival having to be cancelled.
It felt particularly troubling that such a precarious air would hang over what has become a beacon of hope in the UK’s musical calendar. As the biggest totally independent festival in the UK, one which now routinely sells out its 25,000 tickets in minutes with no line-up announced, Green Man has become a sponsorship-free, socially conscious utopia for the music scene.
The buckets of rain that are peppered throughout the Thursday and Friday of this year’s festival are certainly welcome then, as is the continued determination and commitment from artists and fans for whom this festival is the best around. Westside Cowboy are playing the main stage on Friday afternoon when one of these deluges arrives, but their vigour and charm on the day they released five-star debut album It Goes On ensure it’s one of the weekend’s most memorable sets, performed to a headliner-sized crowd.
Green Man has a knack of providing left-of-centre bands with moments that make them feel like superstars. It happens for Westside Cowboy, and also for Madra Salach the previous evening. The Dublin band battle technical issues during their set in the Far Out tent, but look genuinely overwhelmed at the enormous singalong when they close with ‘The Man Who Seeks Pleasure’. It’s also true for Getdown Services, who play the same tent on Friday to a crowd that could have filled the space twice over.
While the festival made its name on booking the best in woodsy indie and folk, this year’s most vital and well-attended sets are populated by a younger audience and signals somewhat of a sea change for Green Man. Wilco – seemingly a quintessential band for this festival – headline Friday to a half-empty field, while the biggest moments of Four Tet’s set the following night are his remixes of zeitgeisty songs from PinkPantheress and Turnstile.
Other sets that define the weekend include a rabble-rousing Sunday night show from New York’s Fcukers, who surprisingly interrupt their indie sleaze revival tunes and lyrics about partying only to call aggressively for a free Palestine and “no more data centres”. Build something that’s your own away from the billionaires and tech companies, the band’s Jackson Walker Lewis suggests, presumably aware that he’s stood in such a place right now.
It’s a feeling that also punctuates Wolf Alice’s headline set that comes right afterwards. “This has to be the most beautiful site in the world,” bassist Theo Ellis says during a show with arena-sized production that dwarfs anything the famous Mountain Stage has hosted ever before. It shows both the ambition of Green Man as well as its increasing draw for both fans and artists who crave the authenticity and community present here.
“[This is] a truly independent festival,” Ellis smiles to the biggest crowd of the weekend, hinting at the reason the event could make its biggest booking yet. Singer Ellie Rowsell, meanwhile, can’t stop staring at the moon that hangs over the mountain. At the hastily assembled replacement event for the burn that follows, Green Man stalwart Pictish Trail stands below the towering figure and gives his own ode, playing The Waterboys’ ‘The Whole of the Moon’ to see the festival off.
The weekend ending with a slick and ambitious rock show, followed by a homespun and community-led singalong, points appropriately to both the past and future of Green Man, a festival that everyone increasingly wants a piece of.