Green Muddy Man

The green Man Festival - Robert Plant, Seasick Steve & many more

17-19 Aug 2007

The fifth Greenman Festival was a last minute deal for me... A week to go and I managed to get a ticket after having been told by ticketmaster that the event had sold out. The original idea had been to go and see the reforming Portishead. This turned out to be about

£150 plus a load of bands I never heard of. Greenman was a much better deal. £98 including camping for 3 days with Robert Plant & TheStrange Sensation headlining!

Three days of great  music! Three days of mud! Three days of meeting new people! Three days of not going to bed until 4am! It wa great. I

saw loads of bands..... some I had never come accross before others I had. The highlights for me were as follows:

Tunng

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset - Gave a stirling performance. With confident folk vocals with little accompanyment.

Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation - At the end of their tour this set blew me away. The band were so tight, having so much fun and soooo damn good! They bounced of each other and the crowd. Musically raiding plants extensive back catalogue in a seemless evening of quality rock.. Zepplin mixed in with Plant from various incarnations. It ranks as one of the best performances I have seen in a long time.

Vashti Bunyan

Richmond Fontaine

Lisa Knapp

The Beep Seals

The Earlies

Connan and the Mockasins - A mad trio from New Zealand. The band were greated by open laughter and finger pointing as the lead singer opened hismouth to talk... a starnge hi pitched squaeky voice that couldn't be possible issued forth.. However a few tracks in and the crowd were hooked and the kookiness (little k.. no link to the cr*p band bearing a similar name) had won the crowd over.

My Brightest Diamond - A gem of a find. The vocal range of the singer/guiatrist and sheer energy was mezmerizing. Take Placebo, Portishead and Bjork and mix them into one and you are somewhere near this band.... bloody brilliant. It was a shame their energy was not matched by the crowd. I really want to see the guys in a small sweaty venue!

Seasick Steve - the topnotch guitarist delivered yet again and played a slightly different set to that from the Cambridge folk festival. I

bumped into him on the Saturday and had a bit of a chat again. He does really come over as quite genuine. You get the feeling that he really

is thankful that he has 'made it' and really does mean it when he thanks his fans.

Well thats the start of the review.. as promised (better late than never) I will fill in the space and post some pics in due course.