From: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org (idealcopy-digest) To: idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Subject: idealcopy-digest V12 #94 Reply-To: idealcopy@smoe.org Sender: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-idealcopy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk idealcopy-digest Monday, August 30 2010 Volume 12 : Number 094 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [idealcopy] Green Man Festival 2010 Part 1 [Keith Knight Subject: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival 2010 Part 1 It's back! The Green Man Festival review by moi. This is coming in three parts as the whole thing has got stuck somewhere in the ether. Here goes another the Keith GLANUSK PARK, BRECON BEACONS 20 August Its been raining for 24 hours when we arrive on Friday lunchtime. Ive been at Green Man when its rained before but not usually until Friday night. Parts of the site are already a quagmire and it doesnt let up all day. The Wave Pictures cant do anything for me in this context, sounding pleasant but no more in the main stage rain. Green Man has hit on a lay-out which they seem happy with as there are minimal changes from last year  the main stage is in the valley amphitheatre, the Far Out stage is a large tent up the hill and the Green Man Pub stage is in the walled garden. There are a few lesser stages dotted around including a literature / comedy stage and a cinema. Im off to the Far Out to get some shelter and see O Children who seem to be making a name for themselves with their free iTunes song and all. Their guitars liven the spirits and Tobias is an interesting presence, someone who gives the impression hes still not really worked out how to be a front man. Back to the main stage for Mountain Man but theyre late, allegedly because theyve forgotten the Severn Bridge toll. Sweet Baboo fills in with a few self-deprecating songs and some repartee. After two hours in the literature tent with Laura Barton and Catherine OFlynn reading some new stuff (OFlynns 70s memoir of pre-teen political gang allegiance is spectacularly good) and Stuart Maconie and David Quantick reminiscing about the NME, I emerge to find that Mountain Man have paid the toll and are playing on the Pub stage where a sizeable crowd gathers. A female trip that sound like theyre more familiar with the Appalachians than the Brecon Beacons, their strange harmonies and song structures are the first real musical success of the day for me. Faced with a John Grant / Steve Mason clash I choose the latter having seen Grant back in April. Masons album has one great song  Lost and Found  and this comes across best in the company of some Beta Band stuff and, more surprisingly because Im unfamiliar with it, songs from his King Biscuit Time era. The Far Out tent is embracing the return of an old hero  The Beta Band are clearly an important band to a lot of people and its great to hear that voice live. Back at the main stage its still hosing down but Beirut are on and Ive wanted to see them for years. The spirits are lifted by the three brass / accordion accompaniment and as soon as Nantes strikes up I know Ive made the right choice. Zach Condon is another great voice, languidly crooning over a backing which transports you to somewhere sunny as a Mariachi or Eastern European rhythm strikes up. It may be pastiche but theres greatness in the songwriting at its best. An hour flows by in the rain. Not wanting to see headliners Doves and having missed the bulk of Fuck Buttons, its tempting to make it an early night and dig the car out the quagmire but something propels us to the Pub where An Horse are playing. A duo from Brisbane with apparent scant understanding of grammar, Damon Cox hits the drums like hes battering his way back to Oz while Kate Cooper layers guitar on top in various ingenious ways. Yet again, this basic drums / guitar line-up proves fertile. Excellent from start to finish. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:49:29 +0100 From: Keith Knight Subject: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival 2010 - Part 3 22 August Sunday at Green Man is always my favourite. People are relaxed, knackered and usually wearing whatevers not too damp or what theyve bought while drunk. After another pleasant walk by the raging Usk we arrive at the main stage looking forward to a restful Sunday introduction into the day. What I dont want is New Yorker Darwin Deez recreating The Kids From Fame, aerobic exercises and all. I seem to be in a minority on this one as the crowd are up for some 80s disco apparently but I feel more at home with the gentler guitar songs of Swedish Je Suis Animal in Far Out. The Main Stage looks a cracker today and fortunately the rain is still holding off. The great Alasdair Roberts is up next, a man in a prolific vein of form with an album and ep of new self-penned material last year, an album of traditional songs just out and another set of songs already underway. Hes with a band this time and starts with classic murder ballad Long Lankin, one of the bloodiest in the canon  There was blood in the kitchen, there was blood in the hall, there was blood in the parlour where the lady did fall. For me, Roberts sets veer between great and nearly great and this fell into the latter due to an overlong story about St Colomba and St Johns Wort. But who else is going to sing you a story about that? Field Music are one of those band that I should like better but I can get no purchase on them and their set rather passes me by without notice (and maybe because Im enjoying one of Pieministers excellent pies). The Rough Trade tent has been putting short acoustic sets on all weekend which Ive missed up to now but I shoehorn myself in to see The Smoke Fairies, two young women from Sussex via London. They are really impressive, their harmonies gelling beautifully and their songs having real heft. The audience is spellbound. Wishing Id seen their full set yesterday I buy a singles compilation to compensate. Like Bon Iver last year, Laura Marling is the Green Man Festival loving itself. Shes one of our own and is now a wider star but still loves it here most. We stand in the field in rapt, near silence as she sings her marvelous songs with seriousness, intensity and power. I find myself searching for the young Joni Mitchell as a comparator and there are few better. This felt like a defining performance. I pop into Far Out to catch a couple of The Tallest Man on Earths songs but, fine voice and all, theres nothing to convince me to tarry and find myself back at Rough Trade watching Napoleon IIIrd, a man with a complex array of Apple equipment and keyboards. Interesting. Mumford and Sons are truly huge now with a hit album and, having played here before, should be embraced like Laura Marling. And to an extent they are, attracting a big crowd who jump up and down and link arms to songs like Little Lion Man. But theres a lack of the raptness that there is for Marling and a sense that there are only a few songs which get this response. There is chatter. Is it because theres a sense of manufacture (those waistcoats)? Perhaps I over-analyse. It will be interesting to see how they develop. Off to see Girls (a band with no more girls in them than there are fairies in Smoke Fairies or Men in Mountain Man) in Far Out. For the first 20 minutes this is perfectly pleasant jangly guitar songs and, tired, I go to lean on the security fencing at the side of the stage. Then Hellhole Ratface starts with its Cmon and dance with me refrain. Im looking at the audience  three men in floral dresses, a girl with silver pompoms making like a cheerleader, a man in a hat that looks like a bears head  and something clicks. This sounds like the greatest music Ive ever heard and as the band move into a wall of sound (which seems to have come out of nowhere) theres nowhere Id rather be. A fine epiphany and the moment of the weekend for me. I wander to the Pub stage after that where a dance beat is grooving out. Surprisingly this is Silver Columns who are old Green Man folkie stalwarts Adem and the Pictish Trail exploring their inner MC skills. Its amusing and rather effective, especially when the technology needs rebooting and Pictish plays us some of his 30 second songs (I wrote a song a day for 100 days). Infectious. This is turning into a great evening and its therefore inevitable that I stumble into The Sonic Manipulator who is preparing himself under a tree. Having enjoyed him a couple of times last year I have been searching for him this year but have failed until now. This is an Australian dressed in an illuminated spacesuit, singing songs about space travel through a vocoder and played through a variety of instruments such as the Greet-o-metre, the Orbatron and the Rap Rod. I watch this shambolic near-genius for half an hour with a group of rapt kids and corpsing adults as Sonic somehow keeps his equipment going and runs through his space travel suite. A true delight. This has made me miss the start of Joanna Newsom headlining the main stage but needs must. Its started to rain heavily again as I move down towards the stage. Although some people have left theres still a few thousand people here to watch and as the set goes on I start to marvel at how many people are prepared to stand in pouring rain to watch a harpist who sings in a strange way and couldnt write a song with a chorus to save her life. This is La Newsoms fourth Green Man and in a way she exemplifies it  a unique, uncompromising artist for an event which has refused to bow to corporate pressures. It may have got bigger over the years and be situated in the most sodden part of the country but my calendar has become inconceivable without it. Another fine year. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:48:43 +0100 From: Keith Knight Subject: [idealcopy] Green Man Festival 2010 Part 2 21 August It finally stops raining on Saturday morning in time for a pleasant riverside stroll to the site. The mud has become slurry in the highest footfall sites but people still seem in good spirits. Theres been a change in the running order in the literature tent so Im straight there to see Rob Young discuss his new history of Britains visionary music Electric Eden. An interesting hour about the history and the meaning of folk including a couple of songs from Alasdair Roberts. I am browsing in the book tent wondering whether to buy a copy of John Aubreys Brief Lives when I am effectively summoned by a long keening guitar from the main stage. Its The Besnard Lakes and they are stupendous. Singer and guitarist Jace Lasek looks like a 70s throwback and is unafraid to revisit the era musically. His wife Olga Goreas wields bass and shares vocals. Joined by another guitarist and drums the songs are long and epic. Superb. Ive been looking forward to Voice of the Seven Thunders in the Far Out on the back of their album but they come across as a little tepid in the shadow of The Besnard Lakes. This is one of the risks of festivals  theres no natural gap to clear the palate like at normal gigs. Back on the main stage, Fanfarlo put in a quality set of fine songs even if one did wonder what The Arcade Fire would cost next year while listening to them. I saw John Smith (whos remarkably high up the Google list given that name) supporting John Martyn a few years back and am keen to make his re-acquaintance. What Im not entirely prepared for is that he seems to have turned into John Martyn albeit with a sunny disposition rather than a gruff, unintelligible Glaswegian mien. Hes playing with a double bassist, Jon Thorne, and another guitarist and has a set of great songs, a deep voice of unfailing interest, a superb guitar style and a presence which is just really glad to be here playing for us. He plays traditional songs, some of his own and covers Singing in the Rain and  cripes  Terence Trent Darbys Sign Your Name which he makes sound wonderful. Theres not a person standing in front of this stage who thinks theyd rather be anywhere else and the response is rapturous. Lovely man, lovely set. Strolling back through Einsteins Garden one is attracted by the band on the till now ignored Solar Stage. They are a young threepiece called Adults and they are putting life and soul into it. The singer is throwing himself off the speaker stack even though its only a foot high and dashing from mike to mike. I am for some reason reminded of seeing Razorlight early on but wouldnt wish that on them. Amusing and enjoyable. Theres a significant scheduling clash for the next couple of hours. Id normally rush to see The Unthanks but am compelled to see These New Puritans in Far Out if only to see how their album Hidden works on stage. One of the strangest rock band line-ups of all time is present  two drummers (one doubling on keyboards), two bassoonists and singer Jack Barnett. The experience is pitched somewhere in a previously non-existent interstice of Laibach, Benjamin Britten and Depeche Mode. Barnett comes across as very serious despite reminding me of Dave Gahan and the drums pound out on tracks like We Want War like a tribal call to arms. I conclude that, although this is interesting, it ultimately doesnt quite work for me and that there will probably be more coherent work from Barnett in the future. But lets not fault the mans ambition. Unfortunately I can only catch a couple of First Aid Kits set at the Pub as Im off to re-acquaint myself with Wild Beasts for the first time in a year. The Far Out tent is rammed and its a crowd up to celebrate a band at the top of their game. Everything from Two Dancers sounds classic now and this is effectively a greatest hits set as far as were concerned. Theres a boy perched on his Dads shoulders near me and hes singing along to most of the tracks because he already knows them. These falsetto boys from Kendal have grabbed our childrens hearts. All are going to the main stage for Flaming Lips and it looks like its going to be great. Theyve erected a huge screen behind them to go with the two at the side and there are vibrant colours singing out in the darkness. Psychedelic imagery throbs, Wayne Coyne gets into his transparent ball and goes adventuring over the audience and the crowd are going wild. But then doubt sets in. Some of the imagery is borderline sexist (I havent seen a cartoon vision of a woman with her legs spread since the cover of Gongs Angels Egg) and the music is formless nurdling. Coyne rambles about us all being on drugs. Its late, Im knackered and all thats to come is a song celebrating how everyone will die. However enticing that is we leave them to it. ------------------------------ End of idealcopy-digest V12 #94 *******************************