The Greenbelt organisers have been campaigning to 'Keep Monday Special' and encouraging punters to stick around (although the Scottish contingent usually disappear on Sunday as Monday is not a bank holiday there). So there have been dance workshops all weekend which will culminate in The Grand Ball tonight, hosted by Amy Lamé, and festival-goers have been asked to bring ball gowns and tuxedos. There's also a strong final night mainstage line-up with Cornershop as main support and Athlete headlining.
The day starts for me in the Performance Café which is packed out and extremely warm and sticky, although it's gloomy outside. Nikko Fir, the project of Tim Sparks with a revolving line-up, is a three-piece today with two guitars, vocals and percussion. They play melodic songs with lovely harmonies and the set include covers of The Decembrists' ghost story 'Eli the Barrow Boy', Crowded House's 'Weather With You' and Show of Hands' 'Roots'.
On mainstage at lunchtime, my goddaughter is taking part in the Children's Scratch Choir. Brave kids performing on this huge stage after just two rehearsals! They entertain the crowd with energetic songs from around the world, many with actions which we all happily join in.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are on mainstage during the afternoon and nobody knows quite what to expect from this Chicago based nine-piece (eight of whom are brothers), though there’s lots of curious punters here. The audience grows as they start playing and create a massive, joyous sound with the trumpets, trombones, drums and tuba. They build a fantastic rapport with the audience and highlights of the set include 'Baliky Bone' (which they apparently wrote to help them tidy their rooms!), 'War', 'Kryptonite', 'Gypsy', and 'Mars'. All are infectious tunes and have the crowd, young and old, dancing, chanting and grinning along.
The second session of 'The Rising' is in Centaur, again hosted by Martyn Joseph and featuring Miriam Jones, Yvonne Lyon, and Reem Kelani, who unfortunately can't sing as she’s got laryngitis, but Jones and Lyon sing a couple of songs and they all give tips on becoming a singer-songwriter and finding your voice.
There's an art exhibition in the foyer of the Centaur called 'See Me', which was one of the projects funded by Trust Greenbelt. It features self portraits and exhibits by young people in care and is very emotive. This is one of many art installations dotted around the festival.
I walk through the Underground venue and get a quick picture of The Computers, all dressed in white shirts and skinny white jeans, who have come straight from the Reading festival to play their brand of hardcore punk at Greenbelt.
Down at mainstage, the Mercury Music Prize 2009 nominees The Invisible are attracting a reasonable sized crowd for their bassy pop-funk tunes and smooth vocals. They define their music as "experimental genre-spanning space-pop". I head back up to the Centaur to see a bit of poetry mixed with pop – the poet Stewart Henderson and singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph have joined forces to present spoken word set to acoustic tunes.
Brooklyn band The Welcome Wagon are on next at mainstage. The husband and wife duo, Presbyterian minister Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and Monique Aiuto, stand sideways on to the audience, facing each other, Vito on guitar and vocals and Monique sharing lead vocals and also playing glockenspiel, triangle and shaky egg. They are supplemented by more guitar, piano and beautiful harmonies from a four-piece choir from the Grace church in Hackney, who have had just two days rehearsal with them. The Welcome Wagon's debut album was produced by Sufjan Stevens and their songs exude a similar nu-folk sound. Their quirky set includes 'I Am A Stranger', 'You Made My Day' dedicated to Greenbelt for "being gracious and generous" and 'Sold! To the Nice Rich Man', a Danielson Famile track.
Cornershop, and Athlete will be next on mainstage but I head over to the Performance Café as I can't forfeit Foy Vance who is playing there tonight.
Sister Jones, and Brian Temba share a time slot as well as a guitarist and bass player and play a few songs each. Sister Jones, a female duo, sing pretty harmonies and lovely songs, and Brian Temba, who by the way, played Simba in the Lion King in the West End for five years, brings a chilled vibe with his soulful music.
The next singer-songwriter, Lou Brown, has been championed by Johnnie Walker on his Radio 2 show; she seems very excited to be playing at the festival and smiles and giggles all the way through her set. Brown plays us 'These Arms' which has been receiving airplay recently – she tells us she wrote it about two of her best friends who had got engaged and were "sickeningly happy" but it's all okay now as "they're married and arguing about washing up." There are a few misty eyes in the venue when she introduces 'David's Not Sleeping' about a kid that she knew when she was a social worker who ended up in prison. Other notable tracks are 'Jimmy Joe' based on the legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil in exchange for prowess in playing the guitar, and 'What Are You Singing About?' which the crowd join in with.
Foy Vance is headlining and closing the Performance Café this weekend and excruciatingly for him, the packed venue has to watch his soundcheck and he's clearly got exacting standards. Once that is out of the way, we're treated to a powerful and loud (he gets the engineers to turn the volume way up) set of emotional, spiritual, bluesy songs including 'Be With Me', 'Shed a Little Light', 'Gabriel and the Vagabond', a cover of Marley's 'Is This Love' with audience participation, and a rare track that he hasn't played for years which featured on a discontinued EP – he chose 'What's In a Bottle' as he'd bumped into the cellist, Harry Napier, yesterday at the festival who helped out on the recording, and so, with Foy's wife Joanne on backing vocals, they recreate the track to much applause. The songs are interspersed with Vance's cheeky banter and, judging from the ecstatic reactions, I think he’s won a fair number of new fans over the Greenbelt weekend.
Over to Centaur for the final instalment of Last Orders which features an interview with Michael Ward, the author of 'Planet Narnia' (he claims to have cracked the code of the seven C S Lewis Narnia books), comedy from James Dowdeswell, who has just returned from the Edinburgh Festival, and storytelling from the Applecart Theatre Company who act out gospel stories, giving them a modern twist. Music is provided by Lou Brown, Athlete who perform 'Black Swan Song', a moving tribute to Joel Pott's grandfather, and 'The Getaway', and finally two great tunes from Gavin Mart and the Saturday Vandals (a mischievous Mart says "it's great to be headlining for Athlete") – Mart and his Vandals opened Performance Café this year and have experienced a bit of a buzz around them at the festival.
The end of Last Orders marks the official end of Greenbelt, although there's still drinking, singing and laughter emanating from the beer tent, but it's back to the campsite for the sensible ones with an early start in the morning.
Totally expected highlights of the festival have been Foy Vance, Shlomo, Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip and Duke Special, and unexpected ones Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, The Fancy Toys and The Welcome Wagon. Although the festival has a packed programme and huge choice of activities, there are many punters here just for the talks and camaraderie, but for those drawn here for the music, the line-up seems to get better every year.
review by Helen OSullivan photos by Helen OSullivan
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