I promised you a post about the Green Man Festival, and by the power of greyskull I'm going to deliver you a post about the Green Man Festival.
Luckily, I didn't specify the length or depth to which my review would stretch. So I thought I'd see about getting away with confirming that I had a great time, and leaving you with a almost purely pictorial post.
You can see more photos, including those from past festivals, on my Green Man Flickr set, in the Green Man Festival pool.
We had planned to eat our tea in the beer tent at the German Market, seen here on it's penultimate night in Millennium Square (from the Civic Hall webcam):
I was really looking forward to dumplings, and Gemma to sausage. But it was not to be. The council-employed door-staff ruled that prams we not allowed. We were momentarily disappointed, but decided to head down to Tampopo for a tea-time deal.
To be fair, the reason given for our refused entry was that the tent was to full. I can well believe it. In addition, the genuine German oom-pah band is back on. They are pretty boisterous and seem mainly to be employed to whip up the crowd into a stein-fuelled frenzy. So perhaps it was for the best we didn't get in.
But I have been on the receiving end of a stranger door policy. In November I went with some work colleagues. The queue was quite large, and I decided to buy a plate of German sausage and sauerkraut - the beer tent sells food from hatches inside and out. But when I got to the entrance I was told I couldn't bring any food inside. I questioned this; I was eating food that I could literally buy on the inside. The doorman was apologetic, and explained this was council policy.
I didn't argue - there's no point - but I did reflect (as I stood outside the door joylessly wolfing down my food) that sometimes common sense is a scarce commodity. Especially given that when I went last week, there door policy had not prevented two smack-heads from bagging a table right in front of the stage. He had a massive graze above one eye, she sported a canulae on her wrist. Both were very drunk, blatantly sipping Special Brew through two straws (aah, sweet) from a stein.
Prior to the (inevitable) collapse of the woman, the man had confided in another from our party that he was her probation officer. Classy; just the kind of clientel they should be attracting. Certainly not riff-raff with prams.
The line up for this year's Green Man Festival has been released into the world.
I'm not going this year, due to limited fundilations. I must say I'm quite jealous of those who are. As usual, there are tons of bands that I would love to see, either again (Super Furry Animals, King Creosote) or for the first time (Spiritualized, Badly Drawn Boy, Iron and Wine). I must say, though, that I question how well bands like Spiritualized fit in with the idea of this being a folk festival.
Last night we finally managed to attend our local bonfire and fireworks display, just a five minute walk away in East End Park. We watched the massive pile of pallets being lit, while a Ray Von-a-like commentated over a cheap microphone. There was no Guy. We left during the fireworks. They were OK, but i think that it's the backdrop that makes a average display into a great one. Great would be Sydney Harbour, New York, The Thames through London; average is Neville Hill sidings and Cross Green Industrial Estate.
I find the differences between the romantic childhood idea of what to expect at a bonfire / fireworks display, and what is actually on offer very interesting. We all have some concept that we are celebrating the gunpowder plot, Guy Fawkes, and blowing-up parliament, but I don't think an alien visitor would necessarily glean any of this from the fairground rides, glow-sticks and hot-dog stalls that were available to the excitable gangs of teenage girls and boys who roamed the event. There was no evidence of the 'traditional' food of November 5th, such as parkin and toffee apples; these have been replaced by blue WKD and candyfloss.
we rose early today. we had a train to catch. i breakfasted, showered, and packed. as i was cleaning the kitchen, i heard someone knock on the door. there followed a minor commotion in the hall, and frau schucter was presented to me, presumably as i was one of the official ‘german speakers’ amongst us. sadly, neither my german nor frau schuster's english had improved sufficiently for us to understand a word of each other. nevertheless, it became apparent from a scrawled note she was waving in my face that it was time to pay the cleaning bill of fourteen euros, and a mysterious and previously unadvertised tax of one euro per person per night. suddenly and without warning, we entered into a tiny conversation; i was asked whether we needed a lift to the station, i thanked her and said yes we would. i told her the time of our train, and she said that was fine. she asked why i was washing up, and i told her the dishwasher was kaput (the second time we tried to use it, the plates came out all dirty). she shrugged, inserted two plates into the machine and set it running.
'the frau', as we never called her, and a random mustachioed man in short shorts and a tight vest took us to the train station, where we arrived with a few minutes to spare. upon buying tickets, i was impressed to observe that the ticket seller was also the local signalman, and so there was no way the train could leave without us. how ace is the transport system in this country? we shared a carriage with a couple of old school punks playing tinny music, before changing to an intercity train bound for vienna. we were going as far as salzburg. of note during this leg of the journey: christina entered into a game of cards with two austrian lads; lee dropped a bottle of water on a nun.
in salzburg, we hopped in a large taxi, the driver of which made a promise to take to our hotel for ten euros. when we arrived at the door, he revealed an increasingly familiar tendency amongst austrian taxi drivers, that of trying to rip us off. he now claimed that this was a different hotel to the one we told him, and it was further so we should give him some more euros. this despite the fact that gemma showed him the actual address. i ignored him, but christina caved in to his extorsion and payed a little extra. we checked in and took the antique lift to the fourth floor, which seemed to be all ours. in comparison to the chalet, this accomodation was pretty luxurious; en suite bathroom, beds that don’t collapse (as did the one in the magnum suite), wall-mounted tv featuring cnn (the only english speaking channel seamingly available). the view wasn’t as spectacular, but was still pretty special in it’s own way.
the hotel golden krone was, to my mind, ideally placed. it was on linzer gassa, a semi-pedestrianised street featuring a variety of shops, bars and restaurants. after a quick freshen up, we were eager to hit the town and grab a bite to eat. it was a short walk from there to the ‘old’ town, across the river salzach. i was immediately impressed with salzburg; it is a clean, compact city of 150,000 residents, but with a relatively spread-out centre so that it didn’t feel too touristy. things may have been different had we not arrived the day after the end of the salzburg festival. we took a few minutes to choose a suitable restaurant, where i had goulash and dumplings and a crisp local beer. the weather was damp, but we were happy to sit under canvas for a while as we planned the rest of the day. being in a city, and staying at a hotel, made it feasible to split up. this we did now.
gemma and i headed back across the river, and spent some time in mirabell gardens. anyone who has seen the sound of music will instantly recoginse this place. i had not seen this film, but gemma has watched it countless times and this gave her an extra dimension of excitement at being in salzburg, in and around which the 1965 musical was filmed and set. we took a short city tour, taking in further sound of music connections along with salburg's more highbrow music heritage, mozart.
we all met up around tea-time (after a short nap) at a bar just a few doors down from the hotel. bar linz was literally the size of your living room, with space only for about eight bar-stools and a small table at the back. the others were already here, and it turned out lee had been here quite a while on his own. he had got to chatting with some locals, who bought him shots. these locals had now moved on, and had been replaced by peter, a salzburger who had lived in london for most of the 1970’s. the atmosphere was friendly yet lively, with an attentive barman of bone dry wit who was on hand to pour the next drink just as soon as you glass had been drained. we soon ensnared another unsuspecting local into our evening, a psychiatric nurse called heike; no sooner had she entered the bar, christina bounded over to her and attempted to explain her admiration for the artist currently playing on the stereo. ‘ich bin tom waits’, she announced. to her credit, heike did not turn on her heel and flee; she told christina in english what she had just said.
after a couple of hours, it was time to eat again. now we were away from the countryside, we were spoilt for choice with restaurants. we knew there were even a couple of well-rated vegetarian places, to cater for christina (fish, no meat) and deb (vegan, eating cheese during the holiday only). we searched for one of these now, as we thought it was near-by. we couldn’t find it immediately, and instead plumped for a chinese. there, deb, having had a fair amount of wine at bar linz, was overcome by gravity and slipped from her chair to end up on the floor. she chose to perform this feat when i was in the toilet, so i only got to hear about it second hand. i understand that the waitress was pretty concerned, but christina put her mind at rest, explaining ‘she’ll be fine’, as if she performs this trick every night. which she doesn't.
after what we so far the best meal of the holiday, we met up with lee who had stayed at bar linz with heike. neil and deb went back to the hotel, and lee and heike came with us to a random club which was full of young people and loud rock music (above). it was exactly how i imagine clubs in europe to be like. we stayed here for a couple, before deciding to call it a night on what had been a long day.
