Green days

We arrive for the week, armed with Settlers' Passes, in beautiful sunshine. Half an hour later, we're putting up the tent in the thick of a thunderstorm. Ah, Green Man - how I've missed you.

This is the sort of festival where attendees have bowls of fruit on their basecamp tables, go for morning jogs together and knit while listening to onstage chinwags between authors - but also where you can witness a topless trans woman romping chaotically through a 14-minute-long rock opera called 'Ladydaddy' at three in the afternoon.

Let's dip in...

Top of the pops

Last time we were here, three years ago, BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD (Far Out Stage, Saturday) were a fledgling act playing on the Rising Stage, abundantly talented but with a rabbit-in-the-headlights discomfort at being the focus of attention. Much has happened since then: two critically lauded albums and, in January, just days before the release of the second, the departure of vocalist and guitarist Isaac Wood. True to their word, they've never played a note of that record (Ants From Up There) live since Wood left - a brave/risky move depending on your perspective, since it's an exceptional LP.

This, then, is an acid test for the material written in the last six months - and it's absolutely phenomenal. Where once they had one great singer, now they have three - and their sound has continued to mutate too, taking on strange and thrilling new forms. Post-punk has been left far behind; post-rock doesn't do it justice. One thing's for sure: there's no one quite like them.

Penultimate track 'Turbines/Pigs' begins with May Kershaw caressing the keyboard as her bandmates become an onstage audience, sat on the drum riser looking on, and ends about ten turbulent, dramatic minutes later with such rapturous applause that it delays them from concluding the set. Drummer Charlie Wayne in particular is unable to conceal his delight. If vindication of the decision to carry on were needed, then the Green Man crowd has given it in spades.

Great expectations

If Black Country, New Road astound and astonish at every turn, others spring significantly fewer surprises but are nevertheless immensely enjoyable.

PARQUET COURTS (Far Out Stage, Sunday), for instance, are in fine fettle, livening a late-night crowd with 'Wide Awake' and concluding a set of wry, wonky punk rattle 'n' roll with a run of tracks from now decade-old debut Light Up Gold - 'Master Of My Craft', 'Borrowed Time' and 'Stoned And Starving' - to leave us at the end of the festival dazed and deliriously happy. Par for the course.

ARAB STRAP (Far Out Stage, Saturday) are equally true to form, Aidan Moffat chugging his way through bottled beers while declaring "This song's about shagging" and "This one's called 'Fuck The Tories'". 'The Turning Of The Screw' - a classic Moffat brew of smutty desperation and poignant meditation on ageing and fate - starts a set that is then neatly bookended with 'The First Big Weekend' and its tale of youthful exuberance. But it's 'Screaming In The Trees' from 2001's career high The Red Thread that steals the show.

Feel good hits of the summer

From dark nights of the soul to bright summer sunshine. After that Monday thunderstorm and some early-week drizzle, the festival weekend itself turns out to be not only remarkably rain-free but unusually sunny. It's KATY J PEARSON (Mountain Stage, Saturday) who makes the most of the conditions, seizing the early-evening slot from Mdou Moctar and charming the crowd with her joyous amalgam of indie pop and Americana. One audience member pays tribute to 'Alligator' by dressing in an alligator suit and brandishing an inflatable alligator; H Hawkline (introduced somewhat dubiously as "the Robbie Williams of Wales") makes a guest appearance for 'Talk Over Town', standing significantly more still than he did when I had to try and mark him in 7-a-side football a few weeks ago; and not even security's confiscation of a giant beach ball can dampen spirits. "One of my favourite gigs ever", she admits later.

Super subs

Spare a thought for those who can't be present - Low, most obviously, who would have been transcendent on the Mountain Stage, but also Gareth Bonello aka The Gentle Good, who curated the Monday night Settlement Tent line-up but who has missed out due to COVID.

Having stepped in for Spiritualized at Bluedot earlier in the summer, PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING (Mountain Stage, Friday) valiantly attempt to fill the Low-sized hole/crater as the sun sets, showing their class by beginning with a tribute to Mimi Parker. It's another opportunity for J Willgoose, Esq to acknowledge the warmth and generosity of the people of South Wales during the making of 2017's Every Valley, but in truth that album's material, very good though it is, has sounded better before - particularly 'All Out', which is too polite and insufficiently ferocious. In some ways, the songs from latest LP Bright Magic make them an ideal warm-up act for Kraftwerk - but it does also become abundantly apparent quite how much they've cribbed from the headliners. Nevertheless, 'Blue Heaven' is headrush pop perfection, and the heart-in-mouth tension of 'The Other Side' is amplified by the scale of the crowd.

Meanwhile, it wouldn't be Green Man without THE WEDDING PRESENT (Far Out Stage, Sunday) answering a late call-up - on this occasion, to fill the void left by the implosion of The Long Blondes. Three years after the Bizarro anniversary tour, they remain rejuvenated, with 'Brassneck' and 'Kennedy' as brilliantly barbed as ever. This year, they're repeating their 1992 project of releasing a new single every month - and February's effort, which rejoices under what David Gedge refers to as the "very me" title of 'I'm Not Going To Fall In Love With You', is right up there with anything else they've ever done.

Guitar gods

"Not blowing my own trumpet", Gedge says at one point with a smirk, "but you won't see guitar playing like that anywhere else this weekend." He's got a point - the extended codas to Wedding Present songs are perennially thrilling.

In the six-string genius stakes, though, he's trumped not once but twice. First by Mahamadou Souleymane aka Niger-based and now Matador-endorsed Tuareg guitarist MDOU MOCTAR (Mountain Stage, Friday), whose psychedelic desert blues style - each song gradually increasing in pace to a frenzy, underpinned by a stupendously good rhythm section - is mesmeric. A protracted version of 'Afrique Victime' to finish is cruelly if only temporarily upstaged by an enormous, practically silent and extremely low-flying plane that has me briefly wondering whether it's Kraftwerk's 3D projections or the early-afternoon pints that have kicked in early.

However, swooping in to claim the crown almost right at the death is TY SEGALL (Far Out Stage, Sunday). He may open as part of a folk duo, facing fellow guitarist Emmett Kelly across the stage, but the amassed amps and as yet unoccupied drumkit hold the tantalising promise of more raucous fare to come. And so it proves with the appearance of the Freedom Band, featuring Segall's Fuzz colleague Charles Moothart on drums and regular collaborator Mikal Cronin on bass. There's no point in attempting to put into words what follows given that Stevie Chick has already done such a sterling job of doing so in reviewing their gig in London the next night. "Ricocheting between gnarly guitar solo excess and splitting the heavy-rock atom with perfect pop"? That sums it up nicely. One Green Man regular will subsequently tell me it's the best thing he's ever seen at the festival.

All for show

Most natural born performer of the weekend? No contest. It's the aforementioned ALICE LOW (Rising Stage, Saturday), formerly a karaoke artist but now backed by a full band, channelling the spirit of Iggy Pop and David Bowie and belting out 'Ladydaddy' in a pair of leather trousers so excruciatingly tight they must have been sprayed on.

Credit too to THE MURDER CAPITAL (Far Out Stage, Sunday), who throw absolutely everything at their set. Until recently cursed to live in the shadow of Fontaines DC, they could well end up benefitting from their fellow Dubliners' attempts to branch out beyond post-punk on Skinty Fia. Why have two of the five members styled themselves on Harry Enfield's Scousers, though? Your guess is as good as mine.

Speaking up and speaking out

Arguably the two most political voices on the bill are both non-binary - but there, largely, the similarities end.

KAE TEMPEST (Mountain Stage, Friday) has quietly grown into a seasoned, critically acclaimed artist - a passionate preacher who has the audience in the palm of their hand with even their spoken-word songs. On set-closer 'People's Faces', Tempest looks beyond divisions and rifts and instead talks of hope, empathy, respect and faith in humanity as a means of healing a disunited kingdom. It's one of the most powerful and poignant moments of the weekend.

GROVE (Far Out Stage, Friday), by contrast, is a rising star, a fierce ball of fury and lust as spiky as their neckware (though nice as pie between songs). Like Tempest, the Bristolian also extols the virtues of togetherness, urging tenants to join a housing union - though only after leading a rabid crowd in a chant of "FUCK YOUR LANDLORD!" (This being the resolutely middle-class Green Man, there are no doubt quite a few of them present, cowering.) Grove and partner in crime EJ:AKIN also rampage through a gleefully fucked-up version of Girls Aloud's 'Sound Of The Underground' that doesn't feel out of place amid the grime and dancehall.

Parental advisory warning

Grove isn't the most inappropriately potty-mouthed performer of the festival, though. That accolade goes to Andy Fung of the semi-shambolic NO THEE NO ESS (Settlement Tent, Monday). On the very first night of the child-friendly Settlement days, and after indulging in some amp frottage with his guitar, he cheerfully exclaims: "Let's get fucked up! Oh no - there's kids here. Well, they can get fucked up on sugar."

Local heroes

There has been grumbling in some quarters about the public money that Green Man receives, with the suggestion that the festival could and should be doing more to promote Welsh culture. But it isn't the Eisteddfod, and in any case No Thee No Ess and Alice Low are just two of the many homegrown acts to grace the various stages.

I miss out on seeing Adwaith and Melin Melyn, both of whom receive rave reviews, while the Tuesday evening triple bill of Welsh-language indie bands - YR EIRA, Y CLEDRAU and CANDELAS (Settlement Tent, Tuesday) - is largely uninspiring. The latter rouse the prosecco mums and arrhythmic Shiiine On dads to their feet, but do so by borrowing rather artlessly from Vampire Weekend and Arctic Monkeys, among others. Better are PAPUR WAL (Walled Garden, Thursday) and their languid heat-haze pop rock, followed closely - literally and metaphorically - by EL GOODO (Walled Garden, Thursday), a winsome, whimsical Coral.

CARWYN ELLIS & RIO 18 WITH THE BBC NATIONAL ORCHESTRA OF WALES (Mountain Stage, Sunday) certainly sound like the result of misguided but well-intentioned arts council funding: an extremely white, extremely Welsh man taking Brazilian rhythms and bossa nova and reducing them to bloodless easy listening. The sun-dazed audience laps it up and the incongruous J Mascis lookalike on drums is an entertaining watch, but the sweet, brassy soul of URAL THOMAS & THE PAIN (Walled Garden, Sunday) is much more the sort of Sunday service I crave.

Right place, wrong time

While, like soul veteran Thomas, some artists/bands find themselves in a timeslot that suits them to a tee (see the aforementioned Katy J Pearson, Public Service Broadcasting and Parquet Courts, for instance), there are others for whom it doesn't quite work.

Instinctively, you'd imagine that the woozy reveries of BEACH HOUSE (Mountain Stage, Saturday) would make them ideal after-dark entertainment. But they're on so late (Victoria Legrand talks about how they've spent the day wandering around watching bands and trying not to get drunk) and feel so remote, visible only as silhouettes, that their crowd noticeably dwindles as the set drifts on. Perhaps people have been enticed away by the prospect of more engaging acts elsewhere, or, after Kraftwerk the previous night, have simply had their fill of static main-stage headliners (more on them in a moment).

CATE LE BON (Far Out Stage, Friday) is welcomed as one of Green Man's own, but there's also a discernible restlessness at the mellow vibes of her complex art pop. Her cause isn't helped by a lackadaisical guest appearance from Gruff Rhys (who else?) for what I later gather is an encore of Todd Rundgren's 'Healing, Pt. 1' - once his mic is actually working, he reads his lines with hand in pocket. The energetic metallic dance rock of SCALPING (Walled Garden, Friday) proves to be much more of the moment.

The following night, THE UTOPIA STRONG (Walled Garden, Saturday) play to next to no one, suffering from the fact that by the time they start, the vast majority of their natural audience - vinyl-obsessive prog dads - have long been tucked up in their sleeping bags.

Somewhat surprisingly, it seems that late-night revellers have also swerved OPTIMO (Far Out Stage, Saturday), preferring the frenetic drum 'n' bass being spun by DIPLOMATS OF SOUND DJS (Chai Wallahs, Saturday). It's fun for a while, but I'm far too old for that kind of shenanigans, so toddle off back to the tent to rest aching limbs.

Reality bites

If some acts are the unfortunate victims of scheduling, others are guilty of either misselling or overselling themselves.

For an example of the latter, see PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS (Far Out Stage, Saturday), whose name alone has drawn a sizeable crowd and who have the audacity to blast out 'Nessun Dorma' as their intro song. The Aussies' undistinguished nominally psychedelic rock is destined to disappoint, paling in comparison to that of compatriots like King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard.

For an example of the former, see COLA (Far Out Stage, Saturday), who feature former Ought men Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy and who, the programme notes, have described their ambition as being to write "something like a Chicago house track that sounds like a band in a room". My interest well and truly piqued, I'm there early in expectation of music reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem, !!! and Turing Machine. The reality is rather different: street-smart and literate post-punk not a million miles from Parquet Courts. Not as billed, then - though not a wasted trip either.

(Un)just desserts

By contrast, the programme is spot on about BESS ATTWELL (Walled Garden, Friday), mentioning her in the same breath as Sharon Van Etten and Big Thief - coincidentally two of the biggest hitters last time we were at Glanusk Park. Unfortunately, though, unless you've had the forethought to station yourself front and centre, her big-hearted romantic songs are largely lost amid the animated chatter.

Meanwhile, YVES TUMOR & ITS BAND (Mountain Stage, Thursday) gives it their energetic all - the MGMT and Prince comparisons aren't too wide of the mark - only to be rewarded with a relatively muted reception, at least from those gathered on the banks of the amphitheatre.

Thankfully, other acts do get the response that they deserve. Dutch quartet PIP BLOM (Far Out Stage, Thursday) - a wholesome indie-pop Hole - are honoured to be headlining a stage and humbled by the reaction they get in doing so.

Semi-legendary 70s outfit WITCH (Far Out Stage, Friday) - who, let's face it, had me at the name: We Intend To Cause Havoc - may now be a patchwork of original members and young recruits from Bulgaria and the Netherlands, but they soon succeed in winning new converts to the delights of Zambian garage psych. The shout-outs for The Beatles, Black Sabbath and Tom Jones don't do their cause any harm.

Comprehension test

METRONOMY (Mountain Stage, Thursday) may be warmly received, but after all these years I still fail to understand their appeal. 'The Look' inevitably gets even my toes tapping and Anna Prior is evidently a great drummer - but the way that they refuse to fully commit to anything (funk, indie rock, pop) remains a source of frustration.

Meanwhile, DRY CLEANING (Far Out Stage, Friday) - back on the site of their first ever festival performance - would be a fairly run-of-the-mill post-punk outfit commanding far fewer column inches if it wasn't for Florence Shaw's deadpan spoken-word vocals. And when you find those USP vocals irritating (and the sound isn't sharp enough to pick out many of her lyrics), then they're not a band you're likely to swoon over. They've got a new song called 'Gary Ashby' about a lost tortoise, in case anyone's interested.

Dividing lines

When it comes to Dry Cleaning and Metronomy, I'll readily admit that I seem to be very much in the minority. But there are other acts that polarise opinions far more evenly.

Which brings us, belatedly, to KRAFTWERK (Mountain Stage, Friday). Theirs is without doubt the most talked-about set of the weekend, but there seems to be no clear consensus. Is it a wonderful, life-changing experience, or is it a bit like watching your gran trying to compose a text on an ancient Nokia (bless her)? I err towards the latter, not least because for much of the set I don't have a pair of 3D glasses (so don't join in with the mass "woo" of excitement as a spacecraft flies directly out of the screen during 'Spacelab').

Grumble about the Germans' idiosyncratic approach to live performance and you run the risk of seeming churlish; after all, we all knew exactly what we were going to get. And yet however admirable the staunch anti-rock 'n' roll ethos behind it is, for a semi-fan it's simply not very engaging to watch. Like many others (it transpires), I stay until the end more out of respect for the godfathers of dance music and a strange sense of duty than genuine enjoyment.

Opinions are split even more sharply, among our group at least, by RHODRI DAVIES (Walled Garden, Thursday). While I loosely align myself with the chinstrokers who nod in approval at a man who appears to be hoovering the stage with an electric harp, my companions - a couple who I've dragged along based on the programme's promise of "the Hendrix of the harp world" - find themselves celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary with a bottle of champagne while sat next to the bins and having to endure one of the worst things they've ever heard. He's going on tour to the US, I say. "Let's hope he stays there" comes the reply.

At least we can all agree that ALEX G (Mountain Stage, Saturday) is unmitigated shite. "Americana written by AI", "the worst songs on a Soul Asylum album" and "magnolia and beige" are just three attempts to describe his crimes against music as we flee up the hill. "I done some bad things", he caterwauls. Yes, and you're doing some now.

Variety and inclusivity are the spice of life

Alex G's presence on the bill can perhaps only be explained by the fact that Green Man's commitment to diversity extends to the quality of the acts.

Joking aside, though, the festival has taken great strides in vastly expanding the range of performers booked. Friends recall going to a Green Man not so long ago and feeling the need to cue up a Public Enemy CD before leaving the car, knowing that they were about to spend a weekend being starved of music by artists of colour and would be in desperate need of a palate cleanser. Now, female, black, queer and trans/non-binary musicians are generously represented wherever you look, and - importantly - are not ghettoised on smaller, more peripheral stages.

Take BCUC (Far Out Stage, Sunday), for instance - a semi-traditional Soweto-based band sandwiched between white guitar manglers The Wedding Present and The Murder Capital. Had I not been hanging around for those two, I would never have witnessed BCUC's invigorating rhythms and a ridiculously high-energy performance that leaves the frontman's yellow T-shirt so soaked with sweat that it's changed colour. The anti-Kraftwerk begin with a solemn vow to "bring it", pause for a moment's silence mid-set "to remember those we have lost" and conclude with a collective chant of "There ain't no party like a Green Man party". They're right - there ain't.

It's true that this particular party's attendees remain overwhelmingly white - and occasionally embarrassingly so (see the African drumming workshop that takes place during the Settlement days). However, if the organisers maintain their sensitivity to diversity when it comes to programming, that will gradually start to change.

Talk talk

Green Man provides a platform for a huge number of female artists, and women's experiences are frequently the focus of the Talking Shop interviews in the Babbling Tongues tent, curated by Laura Barton, to which I find myself regularly drawn (and not just because of the neighbouring cider bar).

While I miss Vashti Bunyan speaking about her unconventional memoir Wayward, SINEAD GLEESON (Babbling Tongues, Saturday) does a good job of selling it. The Irish author is actually here to talk about how the stars aligned for This Woman's Work, the collection of essays she recently edited with Kim Gordon, and how wearying it is as a female music journalist to continually have to prove yourself in a world in which all too often only the male voice is perceived as authoritative. 

A White Rabbit author like Bunyan and Gleeson, JUDE ROGERS (Babbling Tongues, Sunday) has expressed much the same view elsewhere. Her book The Sound Of Being Human reflects on the intensely personal, visceral connection we have with music, especially in our formative years, and it's very revealing that her acknowledgement of the emotional appeal and impact of particular artists, albums and songs was characterised as "too female" for "proper" music writing. She ventures that the main reason that anyone becomes a music journalist is to meet their heroes (in her case, Michael Stipe), recalls giving a young Alex Turner "a proper Welsh mam dressing-down" for being rude to her in an interview and agrees with her interlocutor Pete Paphides that "dopamine pathway" would be a great title for a Mercury Rev song.

Of all of the revelations that emerge from Paphides' earlier chat with BOB STANLEY (Babbling Tongues, Sunday), arguably the most surprising - to me, at least - is that women were the principal purchasers of records in the earliest days of popular music because it was their responsibility to furnish the household with song, and that as a result record shops were also largely staffed by women. As Alexis Petridis has said, if Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah was "a completely insane undertaking", then its follow-up Let's Do It: The Birth Of Pop "feels even more ambitious". My takeaway from his chat is that figures whom rock 'n' roll has taught us to view with disdain and derision as sentimental, conservative old crooners were actually far more interesting (and modern) than we give them credit for. For instance, he paints Frank Sinatra as a music-obsessed influencer eager to promote others, and Bing Crosby as a cutting-edge innovator who not only pioneered the use of mics but also gave substantial financial backing to a US start-up instrumental in the development of tape recording technology.

Fine dining

All this zigzagging from stage to stage is bound to make a man ravenous, and thankfully the catering options at Green Man are plentiful, if not always kind on the pocket.

My first two choices of the festival proper are disappointing: salt and pepper squid garnished with a few gratings of carrot and called Vietnamese, and a chilli dog from Piggie Smalls whose nacho cheese oozes onto the napkin surrounding it, making it practically impossible to avoid getting a mouthful of soggy paper.

But Cardiff's Oasis can be relied on to turn things around, and sure enough their mezze box - a bunch of falafel, a generous dollop of hummus and a shedload of fresh salad - is a gamechanger. Thereafter, it's hit after hit: crispy momos from Taste Of Tibet, fish and chips that is every bit as good as I remember it being three years ago, and what is becoming the traditional Sunday evening tartiflette and sausage stodgefest from La Grande Bouffe.

Big shout out too to Urban Indian for the samosas that kept us going during the Settlement days, and Crickhowell butcher Cashells for being on site to supply some properly hefty smoked bacon.

Team effort

No review of Green Man would be complete without mention of the stewards, volunteers and staff: helpful, hard-working and cheery, whether greeting punters at the gates, entertaining hyperactive kids in the Little Folk area, talking engagingly about their work in Einstein's Garden, or making sure the long-drops are permanently stocked with toilet roll. Bar service is swift, litter is minimal and overall it couldn't be more sound from an infrastructural perspective. Woodstock '99 this is not.

Regrets, I've had a few

As the effigy of the Green Man goes up in flames to mark the end of the festival, inevitably I start to ruminate on regrets.

That I've missed the opportunity to see loads of great artists (even if that has often been due to clashes) and meet up with a handful of friends.

That I haven't taken more (and better) photos for fear of rinsing my precious phone battery.

That I downed too much wine than was strictly sensible before Ty Segall.

That I never got a burrito from Puravida, and left it so late to get a dosa that they'd sold out of the massive bonus bhajis.

That I didn't do better at crazy golf.

That I blathered on at Tilly and Sam of The Bug Club without letting them getting a word in edgeways. (What was that Pete Paphides and Jude Rogers were saying about the rookie journalist error of talking too much because you want your interviewee to like you?)

That I arrived at the Far Out Stage too late to witness The Wedding Present cover Low's 'Canada'.

That I didn't carry out a citizen's arrest on the guy performing a truly criminal version of 'Folsom Prison Blues' on the open mic stage.

But most of all, that we didn't come last year. Here's to 2023.