Green Man Festival, Glanusk Park, Brecon Beacons, Powys <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->
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Your support makes all the difference.The old ones are still the best. At least so it seemed sitting cross-legged on the floor of a big top on the Glanusk Estate, in a lush green valley in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Powys, as an enraptured audience listened to John Renbourn's beautiful, complex guitar melodies.
The geeky youth who once picked out tunes with Bert Jansch is now a rotund chap with a shaggy white beard, but the intervening decades have, if anything, improved his guitar playing. Taking the stage at the Green Man Festival - where Jansch also played a set - Renbourn promised woeful country tunes inspired by his home in Scotland. He delivered a masterful performance - using favourites such as "Lord Franklin" as a starting point for a musical journey that concluded with a standing ovation.
From humble beginnings, the Green Man has grown into a sell-out gathering. Even frequent downpours could not dampen spirits this year. Another golden oldie, Donovan, proved a crowd-pleaser headlining the opening night. In true hippie style, the singer songwriter paid tribute to the "goddess", but his mystical ramblings did not detract from a commercially canny choice of sing-along songs, from "Sunshine Superman" to the tritely resonant "Universal Soldier".
Clad in Cromwellian garb, psychedelic folksters Circulus delivered an energetic set that started with a ballad about a dragon, appropriate in the fairy-tale setting where the Black Mountains loomed behind the main stage. In the big top, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals sang charmingly in English and Welsh - the best of several Welsh language acts at the festival.
Playing immediately after John Renbourn, the poetical James Yorkston threatened initially to fall flat. But doubts were washed away as the Scot soon had the whole tent swaying to a magnificent instrumental crescendo. Yorkston's friends King Creosote played bouncy ditties on the main stage, while Adem was the highlight of the final day.
Amongst this eclectic mix, the Swedish Argentinian singer José González, headlining on the second night, came across as musically monosyllabic.
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