Driving towards the bucolic Welsh valley that’s home to the Green Man festival feels a little apocalyptic this year. Charred peat and grassland smoulder on the hillsides, the remnants of one of the 20 wildfires that blazed through south and west Wales the previous week. The dangerously dry conditions pose a problem for the festival organisers: the traditional closing ceremony, during which a towering effigy of the titular Green Man adorned with punters’ handwritten wishes is set alight, has been cancelled. A sensible decision, but one that left longtime festival-goers with a serious question: where would all those wishes go?
Rain and Rising stars
Then, the heavens open. Manchester quartet Westside Cowboy pack out the main stage arena on Friday afternoon, thousands of soggy cagoules bobbing along to the band’s charmingly ramshackle blend of British indie and amiable Americana. “We were over there last year,” grins vocalist and guitarist Jimmy Bradbury, gesturing towards the significantly smaller Rising stage. They’re clearly over the moon – and it’s infectious. To close the set, the band down instruments – save a guitar and a handheld drum – and gather round one mic for a rallying performance of In the Morning. The recorded version sounds like a lullaby, but here they transform it into a euphoric boot-stomping finale.
That energy charges through the rest of the day, even as the rain clears up. With his exhilarating blend of highlife, funk and electro, Ghanaian singer Ata Kak bounds across the stage with enough zeal to fuel a small army. London post-punks Shame incite endless moshpits with their rowdy, self-deprecating swagger and calls to “free Palestine”. Dry Cleaning’s Florence Shaw delivers a typically off-kilter performance of her jaded, spoken-word indie, bringing out Jeff Tweedy – of headliners Wilco – for the first ever duo performance of My Soul/Half Pint. Over in the Far Out tent, Karla Chubb of Sprints plucks a teenager out of the crowd to take over her guitar during their final song, Little Fix, freeing her up to crowd surf on one condition: “You have to promise to not touch my bum,” she tells the audience.
Desert blues and techno crescendos
Malian rock band Tamikrest supply the psychedelic desert blues, and Gambian party-starter Suntou Susso orchestrates a giant conga line through the crowd. Cult producer Daniel Avery maintains the intensity, but in a surprising way: all headbanging metal guitars and ferocious live drum’n’bass beats, only briefly punctuated by the pulsating techno he’s better known for. Anyone left slightly disappointed gets their fill at Four Tet’s headline slot, which crescendoes from ambient techno into body-rattling bass.
Final headline and secret finale
Green Man’s lineup is hardly built around old-school star power. Still, both buzzy New York electro duo Fcukers and Wolf Alice make a convincing case for energetic performers, the latter in particular during the weekend’s final headline set. Clad head-to-toe in leather, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell commands the stage with powerhouse vocals that oscillate between indie crooning, near-operatic belting and snarling, punky screams, and leads the crowd in a collective howl at the moon. After a performance of that wattage, the replacement for the burning ceremony can’t help but feel a bit anticlimactic: Scotland’s Pictish Trail lead an acoustic performance of the Waterboys’ The Whole of the Moon, accompanied by aerial acrobats in glittering costumes, but the restless crowd never really get going.
Thankfully, a secret closing set brings together Fcukers, Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, Way Dynamic, the Itch, Another Country $$$$ and SNL UK comedian Jack Shep for rounds of back-to-back DJ sets with crowd-pleasing Madonna remixes and a Don’t You Want Me singalong. It makes for a euphoric finale, and wish fulfilment of the highest order.
