Turn up, tune out, drop off

I have spent the last two weekends sitting in a field in the rain, drinking beer and eating an assortment of fried food.

Let me explain - I have been attending music festivals...specifically, the Summer Sundae in Leicester, and the Green Man in Wales.

Leicester was actually very good, highlights for me were Richard Hawley (attached picture, taken by Jim), Elbow, Isobel Campbell, Brakes, Tuung, and against my expectation, the Proclaimers. Final day headliners were Belle and Sebastian, which initially seemed a bit risky to me, and I expected twee bollocks in bucketloads, but not a bit of it...they were very dancey and lively, and they were a great finale. There some great discoveries on the smaller stages too, especially Hayley Hutchinson and Truckstop Honeymoon.

Green Man is I guess a folk festival, but in the less traditional sense - more 'acoustic' than 'folk'. What does this mean...well, there are less songs about bringing in the sheaves, and more about being buried alive or turned into a hare.

The antecedants of this kind of stuff are people like Bert Jansch, Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band, and Vashti Bunyan. Current leading lights in this new 'acid folk' scene, if indeed there exists such a thing, are acts like Tuung, Espers, Eighteenth Day of May, Hawk and a Hacksaw. Occasionally, an act who is more trad than psyche (eg Alasdair Roberts) gets lumped in with the acid folk stuff, and it gets confusing...To paraphrase Ady, psychedelic folk is what happens when folk musicians abandon real ale for LSD.



So...we had three days of music in a beautiful setting in the Brecon Beacons, in the pissing rain. To be honest, a lot of the music left me rather cold, if not actually irritated; the headliners were especially uninspiring (Donovan! I mean - Donovan! He was actually far worse than even I expected, truly dismal). There were some definite highlights though, Teddy Thompson (a bit trad for this event, one suspects, but we enjoyed him), Micah P Hinson, Bert Jansch, Alasdair Roberts...and a few others. I would definitely go back, even if the bill was a bit thin the atmosphere was incredibly relaxed and friendly and the food and beer were great. I had a shower at 8am on the Saturday, and being a bit leaky brained I left my fleece hanging up in the changing rooms. Realising this 12 hours later, I went back and it was hanging on the same hook were I left it...it was that kind of festival...