Green Man Festival 2010, Glanusk Castle | reviews, news & interviews
Green Man Festival 2010, Glanusk Castle
Green Man Festival 2010, Glanusk Castle
Post-folk festival in its eighth moist year
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
If there's one festival in Britain where people are ready for the rain, it's the Green Man. After all, nobody goes to the Brecon Beacons to sunbathe, right? The weekend, which began the spate of boutique and specialist festivals that dominate the summer season now, remains one of the most spirited in the UK, and its crowd seems to be one of the hardiest even when, as this year, the deluge is near-continuous.


But folk/ acoustic music is still a vital part of the festival's identity, hence harp-plucking warbler Joanna Newsom headlining Sunday (I've tried, honestly I've tried, but my God she's annoying), preceded on the main stage by current darlings of the bearded set Laura Marling (charming despite her bashfulness) and Mumford & Sons (actually very rousing, although they still sound to me like The Levellers after a good bath, hair cut and stern talking-to from their dads).

The ginger-moustachioed John Smith demonstrated an equally manly larynx not only on a set of English folk songs, but on covers of “Singin' in the Rain” and Terence Trent D'Arby's 1980s soul hit “Sign Your Name”, both delivered dead straight and both delighting a mid-afternoon audience. Later at night the Balearic Folk Orchestra, convened by Stephen Cracknell of the Memory Band, had an audience dancing to equally non-ironic acoustic cover versions of dance hits, including spectacular takes on “Where Love Lives” by Alison Limerick and Grace Jones's “La vie en rose”.

If by 4am Sunday night there was a looming sense of weariness and dread about the packing, trudging and driving that was to follow the next day, again the distractions kept it at bay. To be surrounded by a knowledgeable and energetic crowd who were ready to have their eyes opened to such a variety of culture – not in a hip, chasing-the-latest-thing way, either – was a pleasure and a privilege, and even the mud couldn't spoil that.
Share this article
Add comment
more New music












Comments
...