Greenbelt 's opening day ends with a late night magazine show
Greenbelt Festival 2009 review
Tuesday 8th September 2009
The festival runs from Friday evening until the early hours of Tuesday morning and kicks off with an opening ceremony at mainstage just before 6 pm. I miss that but make it to a special event in the huge Centaur venue called Throng of Throngs which is for Greenbelt 'angels' - these are people that support the festival financially throughout the year.
There's a glass of wine for the first host of angels to arrive (it runs out before I get there) and introductions from some of the key players in the festival, including Rachel Stringer, the Head of Content, who gives us a few tips on what to see over the weekend. Sharlene Hector sings for us, she's famous for a Coca-Cola advert a few year's back and has also sung with the Basement Jaxx.
I head off to try and get a free ticket for one of the tipped events which is Ockham's Razor in the Big Top, an aerial theatre piece. It's full to capacity on the Friday evening and sadly all the tickets for Saturday have gone too.
Over to the Performance Café, which traditionally hosts mellow, folky singer-songwriters, with a smattering of world music. The venue has been pimped since last year and now boasts a floor (a welcome change the slippery mud) and black draped ceiling and backdrop to the stage with little twinkling lights and candelabra. I catch the sweet, soulful vocals of Edwina Hayes, who performs 'Feels Like Home', her version of this Randy Newman song is featured in the film 'My Sister's Keeper'.
The final act in the Performance Café tonight is Eddy Johns, who with his finger-picking guitar style and poetic lyrics, very much in the storytelling folk tradition, looks and sounds like a young Bob Dylan. He plays some of his own songs such as 'Goodbye My Lullaby', which was penned in the middle of a night, and 'When Archers Cut the Wind', mixed in with covers – 'Moon River' and Dylan’s 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right'. Meanwhile over at mainstage, I've missed Sixpence None The Richer – I hear that they started the set with their biggest hit 'Kiss Me'.
Back to Centaur for 'Last Orders' which is on each night of the Greenbelt weekend and is a late night magazine show which features special guests, silly games and video clips. The musical guests are Louise Golbey, who played on the 'BBC Introducing' stage at Glastonbury earlier this year, Stu G, lead guitarist and songwriter for the band Delirious? who are retiring as a group at the end of this year, and the smooth, sultry Susan Enan. There's an interesting interview with Eugenie Harvey – she's one of the founders of the social change movement We Are What We Do and author of the book 'Change the World For a Fiver' (which she apparently made a huge loss on as the price was set in the title!).
review by Helen OSullivan photos by Helen OSullivan
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