Ladies and gentlemen we are floating through the Bannau Brycheiniog: Green Man 2023
A festival that merely by virtue of its stunning location is as much a celebration of Cymru/Wales as it is the glorious music that drifts out around Bannau Brycheiniog national park for four days at the end of August. 2023 was a year of discovering lots of exciting new bands, mixed with a bit of eye-misting nostalgia, the largest selection of beers of any festival markontour has ever been too (and thanks to the wonderful staff at the Mantle/Brecon end of the bar, who put up with our chat-filled procrastination for another year), and that gorgeous, gorgeous Welsh hill scenery for a backdrop. Here follows markontour’s round-up of Green Man Festival 2023:
Thursday
- Rogue Jones, 6.30pm, Walled Garden
You know it’s a Welsh band when there are enough performers on stage to form a decent sized choir. All dressed in red, singing mostly in Welsh, and encouraging us at one point to “share the cake around”, this was a lively, joyous start to the festival from a band triumphantly back from a 7 year hiatus. - Girl Ray, 8.45pm, Far Out
Touring a cracking funky/poppy new album, Prestige, this mesmerising set was even better than the indie-angst we enjoyed a few Green Man’s ago, and much more danceable. - The Bug Club, 9.15pm, Walled Garden
Sharp, witty lyrics that somewhat suggest The Handsome Family, I’ve enjoyed this Welsh band more and more each time I see them. Alienation with a smile: “Everyone knows the same old jokes / That I still don’t really get / I have a loving family home / To bitch and moan about”. - Spiritualized, 11.30pm, Far Out
I imbibed my first Spiritualized performance from a mostly horizontal position at Reading festival back in the ‘90s. In 2023, I couldn’t help noting that Jason Spaceman now also adopted a sedentary position to make it through the gig, but this is someone who built his career on making music to take drugs to, so I don’t expect he spends much time in the gym. His music is as narcotically mesmerising as ever.
Friday
- Spielman, 11.45am, Rising
A quirkly funny, geeky mid-30s guy with an amazing voice and Pulp-esque outsider lyrics. This was fun. - Pete Brown, 12 noon, Babbling Tongues
Attending Pete Brown’s ‘Matching the beers to the bands’ has become an annual pleasure. This year Pete used audience participation to prove that most of us instinctively pair the same colour and audio combinations (lemon = high; chocolate = low), and so encouraged us to sup an Onyx Lucky 7 porter to handle The Young Father’s bass heavy sound, and a dark mild (a beer originally created to quench the thirst of Midlands metal workers and which I thought had disappeared as factories closed in the 1980s) for Horace Andy; and a brown ale for Self Esteem, albeit a Welsh one (she’s transparently from Yorkshire). - Melyn Melyn, 1.15pm, Mountain Stage
If I had to pick one band that I hadn’t seen before as my highlight of Green Man 2023 it would be Melyn Melyn. Dressed in yellow and sporting what would become the most ubiquitous hat of the festival – a Trolley Baskets Store baseball cap – this was a supermarket themed show, and it was great. Honest. As the huge afternoon crowd danced, so mystery shoppers wandered around the stage redistributing plastic food. “Everybody moo” ordered the lead singer, and we did. There were poignant moments too – a stunning rendition of the harrowing soprano scream from the opening of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’, in tribute to the lead singers’ recently deceased Dad “and for everyone else who’s lost someone”. Top drawer entertainment. - Gently Tender, 3.30pm, Walled Garden
Missing Celia Archer, but on crowd pleasing form, Gently Tender provided a soaring calm before a literal storm that confined us to the tent for much of the early evening. Avez-Vous Deja, as usual, rendered a majestic end. - Beth Orton, 5.30pm, Mountain Stage
The rain was pelting down but no-one was leaving while Beth Orton was moving between classic come-down songs from Central Reservation and Daybreaker, alongside her wonderfully reflective 2022 album, Weather Alive, Just wonderful. Then we ran for cover and the day disintegrated into an alcohol fuelled mess..
Saturday
- Joyeria, 2.15pm, Rising
A deep voice singing dark,knowing lyrics over gorgeous guitar based melodies, interrupted by occasional blow-out discord. ‘All the best Dad’s are secret smokers’ was a stand-out. Definitely one to see again. - Most wildlife gardening advice is worthless, 3pm, Omni tent
I didn’t catch the name of the speaker and missed the start where he presumably explained what is wrong with most wild gardening advice, but I did learn that if you bury a few small boxes in a shallow hole in your garden, sloworms, snakes and lizards may well snuggle up together for the winter – the normal roles of prey and hunter abandoned for hibernation. - Melissa Harrison, 4pm, Babbling Tongues
Harrison’s evocative nature writing helped many people through lockdowns and it was a wrench to leave her talk for Courtney Marie Andrews. But by then she’d reminded us of the simple joy of really knowing a place and experiencing the seasons change: the tree that fell across a path, causing it to be diverted, something she remembers every time she encounters that wiggle in the route, years after the trunk and branches have been chopped and chipped. - Courtney Marie-Andrews, 4.15pm, Mountain Stage
All the band’s gear may have been lost at the airport, but the sun came out and nothing could hold back the power of Courtney Marie-Andrews’ country voice. Starting on guitar for a sun-dappled ‘Please Break The Spell’, she finished on piano for a ballad I didn’t know, but which melted the hearts of everyone in the audience. - Lankum, 7.15pm, Mountain Stage
According to everyone who stayed, we made a very bad decision in leaving after one song, and this was one of the performances of the festival. Ah well, there’s always one. - Dylan Moran, 8.20, Babbling Tongues
Trying to recall why a comedian was so hilarious rarely works, so I’ll just record that Moran’s riffs on middle age were as funny and surreal as Black Books, the sit-com that made his name. I do remember his explanation of why he’s taken up drinking again “They don’t tell you how long the days are when you’re sober – all that time to fill.” - Bob Vylan, 9pm, Far Out
A reprise of their Latitude set, with the same smile-rapped mix of hard-edged liberation politics to a heavy metal backing. “Our shows are half chat, half music” said Bob#1 shortly before realising that he was wearing Bob#2’s joggers and that there was a half-eaten scone in one pocket. Queue a lot of banter. - Goat, 10.45pm, Far Out
Just awesome. I have no idea what differentiated one song from the next, but it doesn’t matter, such is the intense, danceable joy of watching the group of masked Scandinavians live-out their druidic dreams. - Confidence Man, midnight, Far Out
Knowing nothing in advance, I was surprised that Confidence Man are a female/male duo (with further band members off-stage) and further enlightened to discover this Australian group sing instantly addictive dance-pop that seemed straight out of the early 1990s (a decade female vocalist, Janet Planet, was probably not alive for). There was also a bizarre dance routine that ended with Sugar Bones covered in fake blood, apparently killed by Janet Planet. Then they went back to dancing for the encore.. - Marie Davidson, 1.40am, Far Out
French-Canadian DJ about whom all I can remember is that I enjoyed her set, she seemed to be having the best time of her life, and there was a lot of humour in her mixing.
Sunday
- Jake Xeres Fussell, 1.15pm, Mountain Stage
There was a lot of anticipation for this North Carolinian finger-picking guitarist, virtue of a fair amoutn of advance play. Mr Fussell didn’t seem to have the same degree of excitement about Green Man, judging by his mostly mono-syllabic discourse, but then his oevre is songs about screwing things up so I guess he was in character. Nevertheless it was a cracking set, filling the Usk valley with just his baritone voice and a six string guitar. Towards the end, after an empty field had transformed into a large throng, drawn in by hypnotic melodies, I think I saw a smile from the singer as he persuaded a British audience to sing-a-long to song about a donkey that included the line “Wake up woman / And get your big leg offa me”. - H. Hawkline, 4.15pm, Mountain Stage
It was wonderful to see this Welsh indie singer, who usually attracts plaudits but not audience, adnorning the main stage. He seemed to have brought all his mates with him, filling the stage and delighting a large, mostly sedentary, sun-basking crowd. From something he said at Krankenhaus a few weeks later, I don’t think H. Hawkline realised how much the audience appreciated his clever, newly melodic set-list, particularly the songs from his stand-out 2023 album, Milk for Flowers. I loved it. - Seb Lowe, 3.45pm, Rising
One of the singers I was most excited to see for the first time at Green Man 2023. Developing out the Billy Bragg playbook, with a bit of Yard Act and the Arctics thrown in, Lowe pairs witty political lyrics with a Levellers-esque liveliness. I need to go back and have a proper listen now, but I recall Marx getting a few mentions, along with lots of clever attacks on the Tories. - The Last Dinner Party, 6.45pm, Rising
Seeing them for the third time in a few weeks, I was ever more convinced The Last Dinner Party are going to be massive. A big crowd for this beginners stage thought so too. - Horace Andy, 7.15pm, Mountain Stage
A reggae legend, Horace Andy was gifted an extremely excited announcer to remind us how lucky we were to be seeing him perform, or was it to keep the singer known as “Sleepy” on his toes? It wasn’t necessary, either way, especially when he got into his Massive Attack collaborations. A wonderful treat. - Say She She, 8pm, Walled Garden
This all-female trio were lots of fun, getting an end of festival crowd dancing to their electronic disco, and trading smiles with a delirious audience. - Young Fathers, 10.30pm, Far Out
They were sound awesomely good at Latitude, we had to see them again, despite a clash with First Aid Kit, whom I absolutely love. Fortunately, after a slightly miscued start, the Young Fathers were on incendiary form again. Their live-performances for their 2023 album ‘Heavy, Heavy’ are like an avant-garde muscial show and once you are drawn in it is impossible not to get pulled into the sheer intensity of the songs. Rice was a standout. - Deptford Northern Soul Club, 1.20am, Walled Garden
The right way to end every Green Man, dancing through the wee hours to Northern Soul and failing to remember any of the moves I’m sure I learned a decade ago when they used to do dance classes in the town hall at Festival Number 6.
markontour 
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