In search of a festival complete with wild swim, 26C heat and dustbowl moshpits? Turns out, they don’t just exist abroad.
Nestled beneath the Sugarloaf in the Bannau Brycheiniog, or Brecon Beacons as they’re better known to Londoners, Wales’ Green Man offers all that and more, wrapped up in a scenic, eco-friendly parcel.
The 25,000 capacity festival sold out within an hour last summer without a single act being announced, a true homage to how much you can trust its programming. And it wasn’t just the heat breaking records at this year’s Green Man. A debut Welsh show from the Irish singer-songwriter CMAT was the standout set of the festival and drew what is thought to be the biggest crowds in Green Man history.
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Punctuating her performance with shout-outs to Welsh legends such as Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, and H from Steps, CMAT and the Vexy Sexy CMAT Band had the ground shaking with hits. Yes, there was The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station and Take A Sexy Picture of Me; later on, she proceeded to conduct one of the biggest two-step sing-alongs Wales has probably ever seen, thanks to I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!
“CMAT stands for Cerys Matthews,” the singer screamed, while draped in a Welsh flag, as she wrapped up with a rowdy cover of Catatonia's classic Road Rage.
CMAT’s stage presence was only rivalled by Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale who had made her case for being the country’s best frontwoman, flexing and muscling her way through the band’s headline set – after their secret set hidden away at the back of the festival earlier in the day.
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Later on, Techno giants Underworld rattled the speakers (and the crowd’s eardrums) at the main stage for 90 minutes with Dark Train setting the tempo early on. Karl Hyde paid tribute to the band’s Welsh beginnings, as he explained he met his counterpart Rick Smith while at college in Cardiff. He then dedicated rave anthem Born Slippy to his father’s hard work to get him there. Who’d have thought?
While it can feel near impossible to turn your back on the Sugarloaf and the Bannau Brycheiniog behind it at the festival’s Mountain Stage, it is hard to think of a stage anywhere in Britain as unique as Green Man’s Walled Garden. Tucked away, surrounded by stone in the heart of the festival, the stage has an unmatched cosiness and an eclectic lineup.
Green Man always appears to be ahead of the curve. They were the ones who gave Fontaines DC their first-ever festival headline slot, and it is at the Walled Garden where you will find plenty of future talent.
In the day, trolleys of smiling children run between its walls while camping chair-clad drinkers pick from dozens of independent Welsh beers, the festival does not have any sponsors to showcase more breweries, as the music gets underway. Aussie trio Folk Bitch Trio provided one of the standout performances as they mesmerised crowds with what Phoebe Bridgers once described as “Boygenius if it was from the 1940s”, but Middle English poetry, postindustrial hometown blues and electronic avant-pop are just a few of the genres that graced the intimate stage in the sunshine this week.
But it’s not all wholesome. Festival goers then swapped Brecon for Berghain as it turned dark, with booty-shaking ghettotech from Detroit rappers HiTech on Friday, before Chalk’s techno-infused gothic post punk got underway on Saturday, before British-raised, Stockholm-based, Nigerian rapper Joshua Idehen ended the weekend with a feel-good set.
There’s plenty of fun across the festival after dark, with most stages continuing until around 4am. As the sun goes down, an innocuous-looking fancy dress shop is also transformed into a not-so-secret cabaret spot bar Wishbone. Queues for this late-night show are lengthy: after all, who wouldn’t want to see an army of Nessa drag queens and drag granddads leading the party into the early hours?
There are delights waiting off-site, too. Normally, leaving a festival can feel like cheating on your investment. Not so here: just metres from Green Man’s stone bridge entrance, you’ll find dozens of festival goers spread along the banks of the River Usk, plunging away their hangovers.
Families sit around, having fun with the river’s rope swings, while partygoers dunk away their anxiety and regrets until it’s time to make some more next year. Bliss.
Green Man will return next year. For more information, click here
