Green Man 2008 Clockwatch: Friday, August 15th
17.15: Green fields. Green beer cups. Green lights. Green bands (in the Shakespearean sense). Green energy. Few festivals are as green as Green Man, and few are located in such beautiful – not to mention green – surroundings as Glanusk Park Estate, in the heart of the Brecon Beacons.
Friday brings glorious weather, and the promise of a weekend of glorious music. Rod Thomas, a local singer-songwriter with a loop pedal and a suitcase of wonderful lo-fi songs, is on at the Green Man Café. Your Love Is A Tease makes full use of the aforementioned pedal to build to a swirling conclusion, whilst the brooding disco-folk of As If enraptures the packed courtyard. Set closer – and forthcoming single – Same Old Lines sees Thomas leap from the stage into the crowd to sing sans-amplification, accompanied only by the crowd singing back the – somewhat clichéd – refrain, “# it’s not you, it’s me, it’s over #”. And with that, the set is. CS
19.00: Over on the Main Stage, it’s a Fence Collective double bill, with James Yorkston’s gritty Scottish folk the perfect accompaniment to a sunny evening and a pint of the local ale. CS
20.25: Conveniently time my arrival in Abergavenny just before the shuttle bus arrives this year, meaning that the likelihood of arriving on site a) before nine pm and b) before it gets dark is already stronger than last year. KG
20.30: Unfortunately, Yorkston’s compatriot King Creosote can’t keep up the standard that his sometime bandmate sets, with the highlight of his set, rather unfortunately, being a song about a man with a very large penis. Only, he can’t sing ‘penis’. That’s the joke, I think. Perhaps I just don’t get it… CS
21.30: Spot first bunch of adorable, well-behaved middle class children. This leads me to admit to my Motel co-conspirator that, against type, I am feeling somewhat broody. KG
22.30: There’s a varied collection of millinery on show already this year - a man in a purple three-foot tall papier-mache cone has already been outdone by a gentleman in a rather splendid beige fedora. Facial fuzz is so last year already. KG
23.30: Enter Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, in the most ostentatious sunglasses known to mankind. I quite enjoy their theatrical take on the songs from their latest album. However, bar Stop Your Crying (which, alas, is not aired tonight), I’m quite unfamiliar with them and have nothing to compare them to. Over to our resident Spiritualized expert… KG
23.45: Headlining the Main Stage on Friday are the quite wonderful Spiritualized, doing the festival rounds in support of their new album, Songs In A&E. Augmented by two gospel singers, Jason Pierce’s voice soars through the lush landscape, with old classics like Come Together sitting alongside new work such as Soul On Fire. Only the absence of the more epic and spaced-out work from Pierce’s back catalogue – classics Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating in Space, Broken Heart, Stop Your Crying and Don’t Just Do Something are all ignored – hold this set back from being truly great. CS
words: Kate Goodacre and ‘Cody Smalls’
pictures: Kate Goodacre
