Blog: More Green Man

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The Saturday morning of Green Man festival found us making life EASY. The Beer In My Pint Glass bought herself a COLLAPSIBLE SEAT in Crickhowell and we got a TAXI to the festival, two things which we were grateful for all day long. We got there just in time to see the AMAZING Mr Ben Moor, who I haven't seen for TOO long. He did his "A Supercollider For The Family" show, which was ENGROSSING. also HILARIOUS and BEAUTIFUL. I was still thinking about parts of it a week later, it was GORGEOUS, and we were very excited to be told he has a whole NEW show almost ready to start trialling. HOORAH!

The rest of the afternoon was spent seeing RM Hubbert (whose act was very nearly INDISTINGUISHABLE from mine, hem hem, you can see why people get confused NB actually it wasn't, but was SMASHING), Mr Robin Ince, Scritti Politti (who must be applauded for clearly thinking "SOD IT - if we're doing HITS from The 80's let's go the whole hog and make them sound PROPERLY 80's") and bits and bobs of others. The big hit of the late afternoon, however, was the discovery of our SPECIAL AREA. It was a piece of grass near to The Far Out Stage, between a BAR and a CHIP STALL where nobody else seemed to want to stand. We spent a LOT of the weekend there, sat on collapsible chairs/the ground nattering, drinking, and generally watching the festival go by. LOVELY.

We finished off our day with the ever magnificent Mr Gavin Osborn. I've seen him load of times in small rooms (usually with ME playing too) but never here, in his natural environment, on the comedy stage at a festival. He was AWESOME - there was a TONNE of brilliant new songs, as well as cracking versions of ones I know well. It is always wonderful seeing someone at the PEAK of their GAME, WOWING a crowd, and we saw this ESPECIALLY when he started to do "Albert Went Out To See Rock Bands" . I was worried when he started - this was a festival! People had come for comedy! There was some CHAT at the back - was this REALLY the right thing to do? Wouldn't people DISENGAGE? Oh foolish Hibbett! By the end of the song the massive tent was SILENT, hanging on the beautiful end of the story, and we had the sound of a couple of hundred people SIGHING with HAPPINESS at the payoff. As I say, MAGNIFICENT!

Sunday started with PANIC, as our taxi was late in arriving and we thought we were going to miss Being 747 doing "The Clockwork Universe." As luck would have it, however, they TOO got delayed so we got there just in time and it was MARVELLOUS. Having seen their previous show "Ameoba To Zebra" several times it felt odd NOT to know what was coming next, but it was another excellent ROMP, this time through the history of science, with slightly less ENORMOUS PROPS...but still quite a few of them! They ALSO are off to Edinburgh again next year - 2013 is already looking GRATE!

We had one of the highlights of the weekend shortly afterwards, when the PARADE came through featuring about 30 kids banging drums, some hippies leading them in PERCUSSION and some HUGE PUPPETS. It was FAB! We also saw "John Peel's Shed" (which we'd wanted to see ages ago at Edinburgh), Robin Ince again (this time doing some JAZZ JAMMING with a fantastic SCRATCH BAND, DADDIO), and the excellent Jonathan Richman. I got to do some ADMIN too (sorting out payment and visiting the MERCH stall), but again most of our time was spent in our SPECIAL AREA, this time listening from a distance to the likes of Friends and Beth Jeans Houghton, occasionally saying "Ooh, I think this is the hit!"

The whole weekend went by AMAZINGLY quickly, and was fantastic throughout. We had an absolutely lovely time - the prepondence of CHILDREN makes it a very friendly festival with a distinct lack of Outright Naughtiness or AGGRESSION, and it was just the right SIZE too, with plenty to see and do but never too far to walk. We also managed to not see a single band on the main stage!

We said our farewells and headed off to our taxi, ready for a relaxing rest of week, and hoping to one day come back. Green Man: BLOODY GRATE!

posted 26/8/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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