It doesn't take many "buzz words" in an email to get us interested so, Cecil Sharp House, Green Man, Sweet Baboo and Teleman totally sealed the deal to grab some tickets to The Green Man HWYL Festival in Celebration of St David's Day and many things Welsh!!
We took a leisurely train to London to arrive at Cecil Sharp House around 2 pm, where we were greeted by The Green Man and collected our first wrist band of 2015. A quick check of the "site" revealed Main Room with Huw Stephens about to hit the decks,
Seated Room for comedy, live Rugby (Wales v France, of course) and poetry, Cafe full of Welsh delights and The Bar Stocked with Welsh ales and ciders so what to do? Try some of that ale over a game of scrabble and make a plan of course!
To gain a full festival experience from the day we headed to comedy and were treated to some tales from Mike Bubbins about life and love in Barry, Swansea and Cardiff. very, very funny, including Elvis impressions.
Then upstairs for some music from Folk songstress Georgia Ruth, playing keyboard and a beautiful mini harp, with some guitar backing accompaniment and the lucky ones who had nabbed a bean bag had a totally chilled moment!
We may have dipped out for a pizza a little too soon (Athough the fayre produced by Made of Dough from their modified Land Rover was the finest pizza I have ever tasted) Majorcan sausage... with leeks of course!
Unfortunately heading back to the main room we discovered we had just missed Stanley Brinks but there was a vinyl "Gin" with The Wave Pictures so I shall play (and review in due course!) when I have a quiet moment.
So we found a seat and waited for Sweet Baboo to take the stage and, as always, listened with smiles at his endearing tunes, and witty banter, the venue sound was superb and the songs including Tom Waits Rip Off, Motorhome and C'mon Let's Mosh! were crystal clear. Good to hear him playing new songs from his forthcoming album.
So what next? The Pub Quiz in the Bar! With 4 tickets to Green Man as 1st Prize it was a very well supported event, we hooked up with 2 great Welsh girls and took on the challenge which included topics; Shirley Bassey Covers and The 22 Council Areas of Wales! I'm pleased to report we did very well, but also miffed we were only one point off winning! (Damn! I knew St Paul's was bigger than Westminster Abbey) We shared our 2nd prize of Creme Eggs and Dvd's!
The evening now drawing in and the Halletts Cider taking effect we headed to the main room for Twmpath. Wonderful Welsh Folk Dancing to a live band, a flash back to country dancing in our early school years. An hour later "glowing" and aching from laughing, we'd had a fab time. This totally captured the true essence of a festival in one day.
So to the headliners. Teleman. It is no secret this band is one of our very favourites. The set was filled with tunes from Breakfast and sprinkled with 3 new tunes so looking forward to the next album. "Not In Control" saw a good crowd all dancing around the room as a finale to a fab day.
We couldn't stay for late DJ's (we had already missed the 23:35 train!). All in all damn good value for £25 each and on the radar for next year too.
Sally @sally_wally
