Friday 20th until Sunday 22nd August 2010 @ Glanusk Park Estate, Brecon Beacons
Featuring Performances From: The Flaming Lips, Beirut, Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling, Darwin Deez, Josie Long, DJ Yoda, Metronomy, Gold Panda

When you’re sat in your tent pitched in the Welsh valleys, wasted on cheap cider, full of reasonably priced nachos and having just seen The Flaming Lips enter the stage via a door in a naked woman’s vagina, you start to wonder why you ever bothered with festivals that aren’t Green Man.

It’s obvious when nestled into deepest Brecon, whether you’re watching Beirut trumpet their way through a rousing cacophony, laying a 239 point Scrabble smackdown around a pub table or chowing down on a heroic amount of tempura, that this is a festival that cares about the people there. Less of the cattle-herding, battery-farming of Reading and Leeds; more an attention to detail that makes this one of the best kept secrets (though less a secret every year) of the festival calendar.

Highlights included the aforementioned Flaming Lips, whose arsenal of confetti cannons, jumbo balloons and video screens threatened to outclass the actual music - until Do You Realise played out to near riotous crowd reaction.

Elsewhere, Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling provided a fable-folk double-punch (if anything so fragile could ever be classed as a ‘punch’) and Darwin Deez made up in synchronised dancing what he lacks in, well, being in tune. Add to this a comedy tent so packed for the ever-charming Josie Long that it caused someone to faint, late night crowd-pleasing from DJ Yoda, Metronomy and Gold Panda, and a curious lack of attitude amongst punters (maybe it was muffled by all those beards) and you’ve got yourself a winner - despite the near-constant rain. But then again, you’re in a Welsh valley. What did you expect?

www.greenman.net

Jamie Winehouse