We gath­ered once again at Glanusk Park in the beau­ti­ful moun­tains of the Bre­con Bea­cons for Green Man – one of our favourite fes­ti­vals of the year. Here’s a lit­tle roundup of our highlights.

Thurs­day opened with a mini line­up that includ­ed W H Lung, mak­ing their sec­ond appear­ance at Green Man. It was a storm­ing set with Joe Evans as always a cap­ti­vat­ing front man. Sidonie Hand Hal­ford of The Orielles con­tin­ues to be the drum­mer for the band’s live shows.

Mean­while, the inti­mate Round the Twist tent host­ed ses­sions from Green Man Ris­ing com­peti­tors. This year’s win­ners, wing!, a young three-piece, deliv­ered a moody, atmos­pher­ic set that left us keen to hear more.

We got our chance the next day as they opened the Moun­tain stage and it was grat­i­fy­ing to see them get such a good recep­tion. We trot­ted over to the Far Out tent for Horse Jumper of Love and lat­er caught the end of an inspir­ing set by Ish­mael Ensem­ble. It’s frus­trat­ing when you stum­ble into some­thing you’re real­ly enjoy­ing just in time for their last song. Over at the Walled Gar­den, Sex Week deliv­ered a sul­try set that we loved.

Two stand­out moments were
1) Not-so-secret Wet Leg ses­sion at the Round the Twist tent. We got to the bar­ri­er ear­ly and absolute­ly loved their set – six num­bers in all includ­ing Chaise Longue com­plete with mini mosh pit.
2) Pan­da Bear’s set, which was mes­meris­ing. Recent track Vir­ginia Tech stood out, although the whole per­for­mance was a dream­like haze. He and his band remained shroud­ed in mist on a dark stage, the songs blend­ing into each oth­er with bare­ly a break for chat. All about the music, not about the personalities.

As every­one acknowl­edges, this was CMAT’s star turn; her star is shin­ing very bright­ly – she radi­at­ed utter joy and held the huge crowd in the palm of her hand.

Lucy Gooch, who played at the Far Out tent two years ago (mem­o­rably dur­ing the wom­en’s foot­ball final), played a sim­i­lar­ly ear­ly set at the Walled Gar­den on Sat­ur­day; we were trans­fixed by her ambi­ent tex­tur­al num­bers from her recent debut album Desert Win­dow. Fat Dog played at the Far Out tent – this larg­er than life band should have per­formed on the main stage, as they did at Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val in May. Green Man favourites Melin Melyn also deliv­ered an engag­ing set.

On Sun­day, Brid­get Hay­den and the Appari­tions brought their stat­uesque, haunt­ing tra­di­tion­al folk to the Walled Gar­den. I had been wait­ing to see them since review­ing their album in Jan­u­ary, here and the raw beau­ty of the per­for­mance and Brid­get’s voice brought me to tears. Get­down Ser­vices were pre­dictably amus­ing and heart­warm­ing and Divorce, clear­ly feel­ing emo­tion­al to be play­ing at Green Man, also called out a tal­ent­ed young lad from the crowd called Leo, to dance with them on stage.

Beth Gib­bons’ high­ly antic­i­pat­ed set was as mov­ing as I had expect­ed. I was a tad sur­prised when dur­ing the open­ing notes of Glo­ry Box two young teenage girls pushed into the motion­less, rev­er­ent mid­dle-aged crowd around me and held their phones aloft to record the whole song and sing along. Maybe they were young Por­tishead fans or maybe they know it from a TV series. 

The Far Out tent was the des­ti­na­tion for a final cel­e­bra­to­ry dance to Kel­ly Lee Owens’ ethe­re­al elec­tron­i­ca, includ­ing tracks from her most recent trancey album Dream State. Yes, I thought to myself, Dream State might be a good way to sum up the way I feel about Green Man festival.

Green Man tick­ets 2026 sold in record time and Gourmet Gigs has lost out! 😢 If you’re sell­ing tick­ets and would like to sell to us (2 tick­ets!), we’re on the Tix­el wait­list and here’s our link https://tixel.com/u/oliviar362

Green Man fes­ti­val, Glanusk Park, Bre­con Bea­cons (Ban­nau Brycheiniog)

Pho­tog­ra­phy ©oliviarosen/gourmetgigs.com