Herne The Hunter
I went to the Green Man Festival on Friday:
Bad: The four hour drive took me seven hours due to lashing rain over the Pennines and static traffic on the M6..
Good: The location, on the River Usk near the Brecon Beccons, was lovely.
Bad: The organisation - signage, stewarding, sound - was incredibly shambolic for a professional festival. The nadir of this was the Green Man Cafe stage which was actually a £10 supermarket gazebo with two speakers that were substantially less powerful than those in my Micra.
Good: The site was very nice, compact and well laid out. The people working there were very helpful and the amateurish was kind of endearing in that the festival was devoid of any hassle.
Bad: The undying love affair people have of taking unviewable photos with the phones and digital cameras. One bloke in front of me took at least thirty in the space of one song, each time blinking uncomprehendingly at the over exposed results.
Good: Jose Gonzalez introducing his encore as being "about feeling the rain on your face" and the woman in front of me to shout "you can rain on my face!" only to cover her face in complete mortification when she realised she'd said it out loud.
Friday
The Aliens - Enjoyably shouty and mental Beta Band spinoff.
Skygreen Leopards - Showed no indication of ever having played a gig before. Ran out of songs half way through their set.
Gruff Rhys - A predominantly Welsh set from a very chatty and relaxed Rhys. Played my favourite Super Furries track: Cryndod Yn Dy Lais.
Donovan - Despite having no desire to see him I caught one song whilst walking passed. It has about Atlantis and it was shit.
A Hawk And A Hacksaw - Excellent but pretty much the same as when I saw them at the Spitz earlier in the year.
Saturday
Nalle - Saw them supporting A Hawk And A Hacksaw. Would benefit from putting the frontwoman in a sack and throwing her down a well.
Quasi - Rubbish Americans.
Aiden Smith - Another case of the frontman ruining the band. Except, as I found out afterwards, he was a singer-songwriter and they were his backing band.
Euros Childs - Unsurprisingly similar to Gorky's. Ecclectic and joyful.
Misty's Big Adventure - Nu Skool ompah ompah music with added mime artist.
Tunng - File under inoffensive. The between song banter was better than the tunes.
King Creosote - Great. Where does one start with an artist with 33 albums in his back catalogue?
Silver Jews - I suspect they are better on record.
Jose Gonzalez - The backlash is in full effect but he is pretty captivating. Utterly superflous percussion section.
Malolm Middleton - Wandered over for his last couple of songs but left in anger at the crappy PA.
Sunday
Woodcraft Folk - Whatever.
18th Day Of May - Whatever.
Adem - Whatever.
Bert Jansch - Good but not as good as at ATP, partially because of sound quality.
Alastair Roberts - Wonderful. Saw him supporting Will Oldham eariler in the year and wasn't convinced but this was an absolute blinder.
Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Talked up to me in advance this was in fact a horrific prog funk debacle.
Calexico - More uptempo and Latin than I was expecting.
By the way, the undoubted food winner of the weekend was Pieminister.
Bad: The four hour drive took me seven hours due to lashing rain over the Pennines and static traffic on the M6..
Good: The location, on the River Usk near the Brecon Beccons, was lovely.
Bad: The organisation - signage, stewarding, sound - was incredibly shambolic for a professional festival. The nadir of this was the Green Man Cafe stage which was actually a £10 supermarket gazebo with two speakers that were substantially less powerful than those in my Micra.
Good: The site was very nice, compact and well laid out. The people working there were very helpful and the amateurish was kind of endearing in that the festival was devoid of any hassle.
Bad: The undying love affair people have of taking unviewable photos with the phones and digital cameras. One bloke in front of me took at least thirty in the space of one song, each time blinking uncomprehendingly at the over exposed results.
Good: Jose Gonzalez introducing his encore as being "about feeling the rain on your face" and the woman in front of me to shout "you can rain on my face!" only to cover her face in complete mortification when she realised she'd said it out loud.
Friday
The Aliens - Enjoyably shouty and mental Beta Band spinoff.
Skygreen Leopards - Showed no indication of ever having played a gig before. Ran out of songs half way through their set.
Gruff Rhys - A predominantly Welsh set from a very chatty and relaxed Rhys. Played my favourite Super Furries track: Cryndod Yn Dy Lais.
Donovan - Despite having no desire to see him I caught one song whilst walking passed. It has about Atlantis and it was shit.
A Hawk And A Hacksaw - Excellent but pretty much the same as when I saw them at the Spitz earlier in the year.
Saturday
Nalle - Saw them supporting A Hawk And A Hacksaw. Would benefit from putting the frontwoman in a sack and throwing her down a well.
Quasi - Rubbish Americans.
Aiden Smith - Another case of the frontman ruining the band. Except, as I found out afterwards, he was a singer-songwriter and they were his backing band.
Euros Childs - Unsurprisingly similar to Gorky's. Ecclectic and joyful.
Misty's Big Adventure - Nu Skool ompah ompah music with added mime artist.
Tunng - File under inoffensive. The between song banter was better than the tunes.
King Creosote - Great. Where does one start with an artist with 33 albums in his back catalogue?
Silver Jews - I suspect they are better on record.
Jose Gonzalez - The backlash is in full effect but he is pretty captivating. Utterly superflous percussion section.
Malolm Middleton - Wandered over for his last couple of songs but left in anger at the crappy PA.
Sunday
Woodcraft Folk - Whatever.
18th Day Of May - Whatever.
Adem - Whatever.
Bert Jansch - Good but not as good as at ATP, partially because of sound quality.
Alastair Roberts - Wonderful. Saw him supporting Will Oldham eariler in the year and wasn't convinced but this was an absolute blinder.
Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Talked up to me in advance this was in fact a horrific prog funk debacle.
Calexico - More uptempo and Latin than I was expecting.
By the way, the undoubted food winner of the weekend was Pieminister.