On the opening night of Green Man, the BSL interpreters are having to dig deep. “What’s ‘Fenian cunt’ in sign language?” Kneecap’s Mo Chara asks them. “What’s ‘off my head on ket’”? As European festivals ban them, the finest one in Wales – arguably the UK – has kept the Irish trio on the bill, and their combination of druggy lairyness, larky republicanism and very serious pro-Palestinian solidarity, combined with mic technique a jungle MC might envy, makes for an explosive start. Some of the hip-hop numbers are corny – a sort of Fresh Prince of Belfast – but over trap and rave they’re peerlessly thrilling.
Their set gives Green Man an undeniable shot of vitality, as does a set by CMAT as the Irish star enters pop’s stratosphere, off the back of TikTok virality and a euphoric Glasto set. Namechecking Welsh legends Catatonia, Shirley Bassey, H from Steps and Tom Jones, it feels as if she needs a Jones-style TV variety show to house her entertainment prowess: the songs have country homeliness but Stevie Nicks-style arena mysticism; her banter is silly but topped with political spikes as she passionately celebrates Wales’s preservation of their national language. It all earns her possibly the biggest main stage crowd this festival has ever seen.
Folk-rock and indie-rock have long been Green Man’s bread and butter, and the triumphant breadth of those styles is on full show. Caroline’s emotional blend of art rock and midwest emo, their song Total Euphoria delivering just that; Jasmine.4.t’s alt-rock songs of dissociating in supermarkets and “the healing power of transsexual love”, which already feel like classics; MJ Lenderman’s euphoric southern US rock, the result of what might happen if Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd kissed and made up; and a spellbinding tribute to Bob Dylan from folk collective Broadside Hacks. Renditions of Maggie’s Farm and Like a Rolling Stone are a bit broad – it turns out you can sing Dylan out of tune – but his early folk material is stirringly performed by Dan MacDonald (AKA Spitzer Space Telescope) and Clara Mann, and how trenchant the savagely ironic militarism of With God on Our Side still feels.
Beyond those core styles, the festival feels more socially and musically diverse than ever. There’s a global remit with acts from DRC’s Fulu Miziki to German-Turkish-led Derya Yildirim & Grup Şimşek and India’s Asha Puthli, distilled aura emanating from the latter as she grooves over light disco and shares memories of drag queens and Andy Warhol. The Friday lunchtime set from South African vocal quintet the Joy feels like God pointing at us from a cloudless sky: unfeasibly beautiful harmonising, including dubstep-worthy bass penetration from their lowest voice.
As the styles expand further outward, Underworld are the most banging act to ever headline here, Karl Hyde’s dance moves rivalling those of an oiled and shirtless podium dancer in 90s Ibiza, and Bicep side project Dove rolls around techno, speed garage and UK bass in a juggernaut of digital noise. US rapper Mike unspools soliloquies over subaquatic beats but there’s plenty of crowd participation – and even a dance contest – to keep it populist. And New York no-wavers YHWH Nailgun are simply one of the best live bands in the world right now, their constantly mutating funk setting off three concurrent styles of dancing in the crowd: pogoing, salsa and dub skanking.
There are shortcomings: so many songs in Wet Leg’s headline set are powered by the same four-to-the-floor stomp and while they have a genuine rock star in front person Rhian Teasdale, they don’t have the melodic invention to stop it feeling samey – a problem also faced by rising band Divorce, whose songs wander aimlessly. Smashing up a malfunctioning amp at the end, Wunderhorse evidently feel their set is a disaster – “if there’s a God, well fuck him” is the reaction of front person Jacob Slater halfway through – but it actually sounds terrific out front, and the on-stage difficulties bring out something febrile and desperate in Slater’s singing. There is only one actual clunker: John Grant underselling a 24-carat golden hour by singing almost a full semitone flat for song after song.
Nevertheless, Green Man’s batting average is still at a world-beating level, and its valley setting feels like a temporary utopia. Trans rights are frequently championed, and affirmations of Palestine’s right to freedom are voiced by everyone from Nilüfer Yanya to Been Stellar and closing headliners TV on the Radio, who acknowledge “monstrous” behaviour in the world but who meet it with a steadfast belief in something better, that “love is the province of the brave” as one song has it. That belief, combined with the festival’s blessedly anti-corporate feel, combines euphorically at the star-making set of the weekend from Joshua Idehen: a poet, musician, comedian, therapist and a kind of motivational speaker exhorting us to better ourselves. He instructs us to find “a joy with nothing to sell you”, something in abundance at Green Man.
