Green Man Festival 2018

[lessthanwill1]

Glorious sunshine in Glanusk!

[Amy Lawn]

We're just stopped at services on the M5, very excited to get there. I've noticed that Green Man was also the last festival that I went to, it's been years since the last time that happened. I hope we'll arrive for the meet, but it might not work out that way. I'm wearing a black Carly Rae Jepsen t shirt if anybody sees me pottering around and wants to say hi tho.

[ian the worm]

I’m in. Tent all sorted. Distance bass in the background. Let’s do this. 

[SweepingTheNation]

Some of the Cinedrome Crystal Massage times have been switched around:
https://twitter.com/flowerofphong/status/1030047923843813377

 

[ian the worm]

Happy King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard day everyone. 

Ian 

xx

[Mash011]

Just heard King Gizz did Head On/Pill last night, fucks sake. Hope they've got some dates in their pocket to announce after this. 

[benali]

How was it for everyone? Personally it was one of my favourites, helped enormously by the perfect weather. 

Highlights:

Lovely Eggs, KVB, King Gizzard, Goat Girl, HMLTD, Jane Weaver, RBCF, War On Drugs.

The weather, the people, the beer. Loved the ales, drank far too much.

I'm a massive fan of seeing bands in the afternoon play to more people than they probably ever have. It seems to mean so much to some of them, the Lovely Eggs seemed well chuffed.

I love the fact that it's a safe environment where we can let our kids wander around by themselves. The 12yo had an absolutely amazing time. I wish I had been lucky enough to be able to experience that at his age.

Lowlights:

The box office staff who were twice a bit rude and disbelieving that our 12yo was actually 12. He's been coming to the festival for 10 years, we're hardly trying to pull a fast one by buying a cheaper ticket. If you are going to pull people up on their ages then maybe ask for some sort of proof rather than making it patently obvious that you thought we were lying. 

Seems like the traffic getting out of Orange car park is knackered this morning. Plenty of complaints flying around on twitter about it. 

People shoving into the Far Out on Thursday 20 minutes after PSB had started. I had my 9yo son on my shoulders and got barged a few times and nearly fell over. How about getting there early if you want to get near the front rather than shoving past people at the side who waited for ages? 

Maybe the above point is affected by there seemingly being more people there again this year? I'd suggest that not all of them bought tickets either. It's nice to have a soft touch with the security but there's definitely quite a bit of fence jumping going on. It's not a very hard site to bunk into and wristband checks are sketchy at best.

The comedy I saw was more miss than hit. Some of the bigger names, Phil Wang I'm looking at you in particular, turned up and knocked out the same stuff they have been doing on TV for ages which is a bit lazy.

I appreciate it's hard to get comedians in the middle of the Edinburgh festival but maybe have less people and give them more time?

[lessthanwill1]

Was my first green man this year and will certainly be back! What an amazing few days.

The good: the weather, the courtyard bar, the brownie place by the babbling tongues bar, the most amazing setting for a festival and the Thai place in the Walled Garden. We found driving out pretty painless actually - the drive up the other side of the hills is beautiful! Music wise, everyone i saw was amazing. No disappointing sets. Top 5 would be teenage fanclub, phoebe bridgers, fleet foxes, RCBF and snail Mail. Honourable mentioned to Stella Donnelly, Lucy Dacus, King Gizzard, Snapped Ankles and Westerman.

The Bad: Basically the only bad thing for me was Kelly Lee Owens cancelling last minute. 

 

Tempted to for the Settler's pass next year and go for some walks on the mountains behind the main stage! 

[lessthanwill1]

 

[pie_and_a_pint]

1 hour ago, benali said:

 

Seems like the traffic getting out of Orange car park is knackered this morning. Plenty of complaints flying around on twitter about it. 

 

The comedy I saw was more miss than hit. Some of the bigger names, Phil Wang I'm looking at you in particular, turned up and knocked out the same stuff they have been doing on TV for ages which is a bit lazy.

We drove out at 2am and barely saw another vehicle between Crickhowell and Witney   The burst water main and road diversions that seem to have caused long delays in Orange were in place in the middle of the night, though, so I reckon that they had had at least six to eight hours to sort it before everyone started leaving en mass!

Other than Phil 'boring' Wang (we left after 10 mins as he was regurgitating Generic Panel Show Jokes) and the woeful lack of toilets on both site and campsites, we had a brilliant time. Great weather, fantastic selection of beers and food, and some truly sublime musical performances. 

 

[BrighterNow]

My first Green Man - and what a wonderful few days.  Such a beautiful setting, perfect weather, very friendly (especially important to me as I was there on my own), very environmentally conscious, delicious food, a great 'vibe' ... I loved it.

 

 

[Berkspur]

2 hours ago, benali said:

How was it for everyone? Personally it was one of my favourites, helped enormously by the perfect weather. 

Highlights:

Lovely Eggs, KVB, King Gizzard, Goat Girl, HMLTD, Jane Weaver, RBCF, War On Drugs.

The weather, the people, the beer. Loved the ales, drank far too much.

I'm a massive fan of seeing bands in the afternoon play to more people than they probably ever have. It seems to mean so much to some of them, the Lovely Eggs seemed well chuffed.

I love the fact that it's a safe environment where we can let our kids wander around by themselves. The 12yo had an absolutely amazing time. I wish I had been lucky enough to be able to experience that at his age.

Lowlights:

The box office staff who were twice a bit rude and disbelieving that our 12yo was actually 12. He's been coming to the festival for 10 years, we're hardly trying to pull a fast one by buying a cheaper ticket. If you are going to pull people up on their ages then maybe ask for some sort of proof rather than making it patently obvious that you thought we were lying. 

Seems like the traffic getting out of Orange car park is knackered this morning. Plenty of complaints flying around on twitter about it. 

People shoving into the Far Out on Thursday 20 minutes after PSB had started. I had my 9yo son on my shoulders and got barged a few times and nearly fell over. How about getting there early if you want to get near the front rather than shoving past people at the side who waited for ages? 

Maybe the above point is affected by there seemingly being more people there again this year? I'd suggest that not all of them bought tickets either. It's nice to have a soft touch with the security but there's definitely quite a bit of fence jumping going on. It's not a very hard site to bunk into and wristband checks are sketchy at best.

The comedy I saw was more miss than hit. Some of the bigger names, Phil Wang I'm looking at you in particular, turned up and knocked out the same stuff they have been doing on TV for ages which is a bit lazy.

I appreciate it's hard to get comedians in the middle of the Edinburgh festival but maybe have less people and give them more time?

Agree about PSB in Far Out tent.  We left because the crushing was ridiculous.  If it's full they should stop people going in.  My brother was at a Spurs FA Cup semi final at Hillsborough before the Liverpool tragedy and was convinced the bad policing would lead to problems there.  Some Spurs fans complained to the FA - fat lot of good that did.

Apart from that we loved it.  Usually do End of the Road but we'll be at a wedding this year so did Green Man instead.  Lots of similarities though I think EotR is better organised. Loved Courtney Marie Andrews, Fleet Foxes, was front row for WoD which was amazing.  My husband is now obsessed with Anna Calvi .  I thought she was as mad as a box of frogs but undeniably entertaining. We packed up Sunday morning and left after WoD.  Leaving the site there was a diversion - no roadsigns for ages but we found our way our more by luck than judgement.

Comedy highlight - woken up at 6am by a woman screaming "You're drunk!  Where have you been?  The only reason I haven't changed the locks is this is a f***ing TENT!"

Edited August 20, 2018 by Berkspur

[ian the worm]

Just my and the 12 year old at our first one and we had a lovely time.

Best were PSB (we got to on the barrier) ✅ and John Grant (we got on the barrier) ✅.

The main stage terraces are superb for sitting and seeing the acts. Best from the terrace were King Gizzards, Sweet Baboo, Anna Calvi and Joan as Police Woman. 

Being 12 she finds its hard to do the kids stuff (5 to 12) and equally didn’t want to do the 13 to 16 stuff. So we did lots of making our own fun instead. 

Chai Wallahs is a great venue and I finally got to leg my hair down to Hiohopapotamass!

The location, size, vibe and cleanliness of the site was fantastic.  Would definitely recommend it and go again next year.

However..... the program lacked variety. By Sunday I’d seen enough serious guitar indie psych rock bands trot on stage to perform their polished music in a serious manor with fancy lights etc.  But... where are the fun acts?  The jokey sing a long stuff?  An event act that everyone must see?  

That and the toilet quantity.

PS Rattlesnake Rattlesnake Rattlesnake Rattlesnake!

Edited August 20, 2018 by ian the worm

[danmarks]

1 hour ago, BrighterNow said:

My first Green Man - and what a wonderful few days.  Such a beautiful setting, perfect weather, very friendly (especially important to me as I was there on my own), very environmentally conscious, delicious food, a great 'vibe' ... I loved it.

 

 

Were you in tangerine fields by any chance ?

[ian the worm]

Did anyone else spot the Fleet Foxes lead singer say this was their only gig in England this year. 

[benali]

Totally agree about stopping people going in the Far Out when it's full. There's a distinct lack of stewards and no security around that area. At EOTR they quite frequently limit the number of people going in to the Big Top. King Gizzard a couple of years ago was busy but sensibly they have stewards and security to stop people piling in and making it uncomfortably packed. That's probably easier in a tent that has set entrances rather than the open plan one at GM but they definitely need to think about this. 

We didn't really have have any problems with toilets although some queues did look pretty long, especially at the courtyard entrance. The waterless ones in the Settlers camping were ace and never really seemed that busy. Showers had stupid queues at times, even later in the day when they are normally quiet.

Luckily we were in Blue parking and got out ok but still took ages to get home. Seems like some unlucky people in Orange were stuck for nearly 3 hours. Ouch.

[Odessa]

Had a class weekend doing the volunteering. The last couple of hours of the night shift were grim but it was good to get that out of the way early doors. And the other two shifts were laughably easy sat by the bonfire on Saturday morning, and then in the settlement camping on Sunday afternoon. Literally just sat there having a chat and doing next to nothing, mainly just explaining the brown water situation to about a thousand different people. I was a fairly useless steward in all honesty as my sense of direction is awful; I couldn't give people directions to anywhere cos I couldn't remember where anything was, so basically just had my mate do everything haha. They look after you well with the food and that as well, I'd defo recommend the volunteering to anyone who would rather not fork out for a ticket. I'll do it again for sure if they book a couple of bands I really wanna see again. 

Didn't see loads of acts, cos I didn't put enough effort into researching the lower down acts, and didn't really fancy seeing random stuff when it came round to it. 

Only saw Public Service Broadcasting on Thursday. I gave them a bit of a listen a few years ago, but forgot all about them really until this. What even are they? Putting music alongside historic events? Pretty unique band and I enjoyed them. 7/10.

On Friday I was happy sat drinking at camp recovering from the night shift until the evening, so missed all the daytime stuff. I went to The Lemon Twigs hoping for as much as the debut album as possible, cos the new album isn't out til Friday. Got the complete opposite really, only about 3 old songs, but it didn't matter in the end as I thought it all sounded great. Top live act and I'm hoping for a tour now. And the 60 odd quid Arctics tickets are looking like better value now; if anyone's going then make sure you get there early. 8.5/10. Saw a fair chunk of Dirty Projectors, can't really say anything about them other than that they were really dull for the most part. Never even heard of them outside of this lineup, am I out of touch or was a sub slot for these a bit weird? 2/10. Saw most of Floating Points, didn't really get it but that's not a criticism. Not gonna bother rating that set. I went to Alex Cameron to close the night who was brilliant as always, and Roy is still hilarious. 8.5/10.

Boy Azooga on Saturday were a lot of fun, and I agree with what @benali said about how cool it is to see bands genuinely made up to be there. We bumped into the (absolutely hammered) singer at the bar at about 2am, and he was a lovely fella. 7/10 for their set. I found Teleman to be a little bit hit and miss; they do have some great tunes, particularly Dusseldorf, but they didn't grab me all the way through. 6/10. I dunno if Teenage Fanclub are past it, or if I just wasn't in the mood for them, but I wasn't getting a lot out of their set. Left after half an hour. A 90 minute slot for an act second down the second stage is kinda absurd. I know it's great for their fans but a shorter more focused set would probably have been better suited to a festival. 4/10 for what I saw. Don't think we saw much of Fleet Foxes but it felt like a long time. They were beyond dull, but the crowd was absolutely massive so I'm clearly in the minority with my thoughts on them. 0/10. Saw all of Simian Mobile Disco, and pretty sure I enjoyed it, but don't really remember cos I was in too much of a state.

Had the 1pm-7pm shift on Sunday and then went for some tea, so only saw a couple of acts. I wasn't 100% sure I was gonna enjoy Grizzly Bear but I thought they were really good. Very accomplished live band. 7.5/10. The War On Drugs were the main reason I went to the festival and they didn't disappoint. My first time seeing them and I thought they were outstanding. Doubt I'll be able to make it to the 02 gig in December but I'm defo thinking about it more than I was before. 9/10.

Hope you had a good weekend @SighMo and @GETOFFAMYLAWN! Surprised I didn't bump into you again after the Thursday. (Well I saw you Amy Lawn when I was working yesterday but I didn't fully clock you til you'd walked past ahah.)

Fully expecting the volunteering at Lost Village to be a disorganised mess and also shite weather now cos this one all worked out too perfectly. Only problem I had all weekend was that my revolutionary inflatable tent that I always brag about seems to be punctured and I woke up very confused in a flat tent this morning.  Need to get that sorted by Wednesday for sure.

[Odessa]

30 minutes ago, ian the worm said:

Did anyone else spot the Fleet Foxes lead singer say this was their only gig in England this year. 

Oh man. My 0/10 was too high.

[SweepingTheNation]

I don't know how much of an inconvenience this was generally but there should have been actual signs up regarding the lineup changes instead of trusting people to catch them on social media - not just Girl Ray, who I'm not bothered about seeing anyway but I didn't know had come in as replacement for Kelly Lee Owens until long afterwards, but John Maus and Insecure Men were still listed. That said, for a band added after tickets sold out there seemed a lot of Wedding Present die-hards there. (And weirdly, given the discussion, a crowd several deep outside the tent even though there was a good amount of space within it)

Highlights, FWIW: the almost complete lack of rain, the brownies stall, the still great burger place by Chai Wallahs, Grizzly Bear as the night fell, Baxter Dury, Teenage Fanclub (who just announced today that Gerry is leaving, so even better to catch them then), Sacred Paws, Cate Le Bon and John Grant's guest appearance, Rolling Blackouts etc, Stella Donnelly, Islet, getting out before the holdups.

[ian the worm]

This was the big screen on Thursday evening....

[lessthanwill1]

I didn't see anything about Kelly Lee Owens or John Talabot

[picicata]

Third GM and definitely the one with the best weather! Love this festival even though, I felt, musically this was the poorest year.

Highlights: PSB, Stella Donnelly, Baxter Dury, Grizzly Bear, Friendly Fire.. The lovely selection of beers in the Courtyard.. The weather.. the fireworks.. the campsites being left largely tidy of rubbish.. the Dosa stand

Lowlights: I found all three headliners on the mountain stage a bit dull. King Gizz were ok for a few songs but they have a definite formula to their music which I found repetitive. Fleet foxes are just dull and WoD are just too self indulgent for my tastes. PJ Harvey last year blew all three away with room to spare.

On points others have raised: Far Out stage has a problem in its layout. I was front left for PSB and there was a fair amount of space around me and in front of the raised disability platform but for those further back it probably seemed very full. The sound desk and the viewing platform block off so much access that it is often busier at the rear of the tent than the front.

I didn't have to queue for a loo all weekend but that's because I am able use stand up urinals. The queues for the loos by the Far Out, Babbling Tongues and the Mountain were at times massive. Maybe adding another large amount in the space near the Cinedrome is the answer? But then would they get used? The ones up by the workshop area very rarely had any queue but are slightly out of the way.

Great Festival!

 

[bexj]

I've had an awesome week at Greenman, we arrived Monday lunchtime in Settlers which was a bit unsettling when you don't have kids.  Its a bit of a different festival when you're woken up at 7am every morning! But that was really my only gripe of the entire week. 

The settlers week was fab, some nice entertainment in the evening and an easy walk into crickhowell. Really pleasant atmosphere amongst the punters and a nice ease into the festival. 

I thought there were loads of toilets! Ok queues sometimes bad but if you go while bands are on then its fine. I thought on the whole they were clean and well stocked.  Could have done with some more water taps around the camping and arena but it wasnt a huge deal. 

Bands wise, oh my word!

Started with Bas Jan but was a bit disappointed to be honest, i like Serafina Steer but they all just looked uncomfortable.

Pictish trail blew my socks off, really good fun! 

PSB we danced to at the screen outside.  I love the Lovely Eggs, and they certainly didn't disappoint! We had a right good thrash about down the front and made some new friends who we ended up with for a lot of the weekend! 

Eleanor Friedburger was lovely, quite enjoyed King Tuff and saw a bit of Joan as Policewoman. 

Never seen BEAK> before, but thought they were superb. Started King Gizz near the front but moved back and enjoyed them more from a distance. 

Saturday started with Jim Ghedi, his type of stuff isnt usually my bag but he was really good and we had a really chilled couple of hours eating gorgeous samosas and cakes from the Dragon Deli. 

Bo Ningen were next, oh wow, i think they were band of the weekend for me with their crazy Japanese psych. Loved it! Saw a bit of Baxter Dury and then Cate le Bon who totally owned that mountain stage, she was brilliant!  I thought Teenage Fanclub were boring and we left 2/3 way through and went to bop the night away at Rownd the Twist. 

Sunday I'd not got a lot planned to see but ended up seeing Xylourious White, Follakazoid, Jane Weaver, RBCF. We are massive Wedding Present fans and thought their set was one of the best I've ever seen. It took me a bit to calm down after that, but we listened to Black Angels and Brian Jonestown too. 

I can't believe we crammed so much in, and still had time and space to chat to people. 

Utterly fab weekend. 

[ian the worm]

9 minutes ago, picicata said:

Far Out stage has a problem in its layout. I was front left for PSB and there was a fair amount of space around me and in front of the raised disability platform but for those further back it probably seemed very full. The sound desk and the viewing platform block off so much access that it is often busier at the rear of the tent than the front.

This. 

Me and the girl squeezed past the disabled platform just 5 mins before PSB and found a massive gap front left. We even got on the barrier. Tonnes of space all set from where I stood. 

The sound desk was unbelievably huge.

I’ve worked on sound desks at festivals and that one took up far too much width.

There was sound monitoring, mixing, lights and video all in a line There is no problem in squeezing them down and placing sound in front of lights. Also moving them off center to the right to make the gaps equal round the platform. Again it could be a tower in a tent that big  

Another idea is to open the left side all the way so people can enter in front of the platform. This would then 100% mimic the glasto Acoustic stage which works very well. 

[rug568]

Another excellent year. Line up for me wasn't anywhere near as good as last years, but highlights musically were RCBF, phoebe bridgers and King Tuff. PSB really surprised me, although I couldn't get into the tent which was a shame. I was stewarding which was fun. Everyone at the festival is very well behaved I must say. The litter pickers I spoke to were so bored because nobody was dropping rubbish. Had a lot of fun playing with the marauding kids at the main stage on Sunday night. 

I really enjoyed the divisiveness of fleet foxes and war on drugs as headliners. My thoughts were that they were both fine if unspectacular and rather samey, but they do both have some bangers. Don't really see how anyone can have strong opinions on either.