I’ve just come back from the Green Man festival at Brecon, my first music festival, and had a pretty good time. Saw a whole pile of really great music and took a load of fairly middling photos. The best performances, however, were by bands I already knew and are not really Partly Porpoise fare because they are so well known. For example, Calexicio were great, as were the Silver Jews, Micah P Hinson and M Ward. There were also some top class performances by a whole load of Welsh names (I guess it’s not a surprise) – Euros Childs, Richard James, Cerys Matthews and an absolutely mental set from Gruff Rhys. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much Welsh sung...One of the best sets, however, was by Phillip Roebuck, my one-man-band hero and all round uber-busker, who was as crazed as I had hoped he would be, thrashing a noticeably battle-worn banjo so hard that he’d broken a string within two songs. He didn’t have such a great spot in the festival, I thought, mid afternoon on the Saturday, with not a huge audience, but I heard more than a few people talking about the “cool banjo dude”, so I can’t have been the only one he impressed. I did feel also that the huge stage didn’t do him any favours, and I’m imagining that the smaller more intimate setting of Sunday’s Slak Bar gig will suit him pretty well. He himself doesn’t seem to mind where he plays and told me that it’s always great to play a large venue.
(Did you see how I slipped that in? Yes, it’s official - I am indeed Friend to the Stars, as I met Phillip briefly in the Green Man Café the following day. A thoroughly decent bloke he seemed too, talking about how he regularly breaks strings because of the way he plays, and showing me the state of his hands…)
Anyway, as I mentioned last time, there are loads of songs available for download on his site, and I’m sure you’ve taken them all, but for those of you’ve not gotten around to it yet, here are a couple more. Betcha can't sit still!
Soldier's Joy
Little Bo Peep
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