GREEN MAN FESTIVAL 2005, HAY ON WYE

SUNDAY

The general good feeling created by Alastair Roberts and Will Oldham crushed my hangover flat, and a massive sausage, egg and bacon cob brought glorious golden triumph shining down on my morning. I invaded Will & Ruth's room to take a large luxurious poo, during which I learned that Courtney Love is having Alan Partridge's baby. I followed this with a hot shower and some general lounging.

Delirious hippiedom had by now set in, and a shoeless Johnson led us to feed apples to horses. I believe this represented the peak of our good vibes. Even two horses kicking shit out of each other over an apple quarter couldn't dampen our mood. One of the horses even looked like Iggy Pop.

We caught a truncated set by Jeffrey Lewis on the main stage, which featured the weekend's best song - a long, hilarious tale about meeting Will Oldham on a train and asking him about whether being creative was worthwhile or just something that inevitably leads to misery. The song culminates in "Will, Bonnie Prince whateverthefuckyou'recalled" beating Jeffrey to a pulp and fucking him "like he does in his songs".

Next up we peeled ourselves into the small stage to see Broken Family Band, except I hacked about 20 seconds of them setting up before bailing to the outside world with booze-induced heat queasiness. Ian assured me they were a highlight. I sat on the lawn for a bit and watched a parade of kids circle the grounds holding aloft a huge paper and cloth dragon that was the result of a craft workshop that day. They thrust the head into the face of a man sitting on the lawn opposite me only for him to freak out and scream "DON'T FUCKING DO THAT, I'M TRIPPINGGGGG!!!!!".

The power cuts that plagued Superwolf's finale hit The Earlies throughout their set, and I concluded that it was God herself doing this. In the case of Superwolf it was for the benefit of everyone, in that we couldn't take any more gloriousness. In the case of The Earlies it was because they were bollocks. I don't see what The Earlies, or any of the crappy offshoots of The Beta Band that seemed to be playing every 10 mins have to do with 'folk' or anything apart from a peculiar fashion for over-instrumentation and a cowardliness to either turn up or turn down. It's the new MOR. Not that I cared at this point, as I was laying into another flagon of scrumpy.

Sadly the glorious weather didn't hold out, and Joanna Newsom's appearance onstage brought with it the rain that had threatened all weekend. She seemed to go over equally as well as Superwolf but my concentration wouldn't hold and I thought it all sounded the same after a while. Which I guess it does, really, and that's a virtue if you're in the mood for it and a curse if you're not.

We ended up sneaking into Will & Ruth's room again for something of a party, in the hope that the security on the front door would go home and we could convince them to open the hotel bar after hours. Unfortunately the folkies went wild and started some sort of impromptu dance and clap party on the lawn which tempted us out of the room and onto the balcony to see what was going on - only to get busted by security. So we bailed, in search of a last night party.

Which we didn't get. The night ended for me with a left-handed throwing competition as we wasted a 50 pack of Bourbon biscuits, throwing them like girls at a posh tent 20 metres from ours.

CONCLUSIONS

Great festival to hang out at. Amazing location.
Quality of the bill is a bit up and down though.
Cider is amazing.
Fuck camping, next year I'm getting Will & Ruth's room.

Article by Chris Summerlin
Photos by Daniel