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Green Man festival review: Sherelle sets the tone, Big Thief are a big hit and Sampha closes in style
With the sun out, an inclusive atmosphere and a stellar lineup also featuring Porridge Radio, Lonnie Holley and Blonde Redhead, is this Britain’s best festival of the year?
The band recently replaced a departing bassist and added a percussionist, a doubling-down of the rhythm section that gives tracks such as Simulation Swarm greater heft than before, but Adrianne Lenker still dominates out front, whether shredding noisy solos or singing over acoustic guitar to silent reverence. Tinariwen and Devendra Banhart each bob along on undulating grooves, the latter dropping in covers of Aaliyah and Madonna, while US rockers Wednesday out-shred even Lenker, as Karly Hartzman delivers cathartic screams in Bull Believer (here they dedicate its rage towards the US in supplying arms to Israel). Amid his sensational closing headline set, its rhythmically daring tracks suffused with a kind of secular gospel benediction, Sampha tells the crowd “you guys feel so open”: indeed, this festival is full of artists giving everything they have to audiences who receive it in the same spirit.
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