When: 14th August 2025
Where: Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, Wales
A very warm welcome to the 23rd edition of the Green Man Festival. And as another extreme heatwave extends right across Europe, on this, the first day of Wales’s largest music, science, and arts festival, the music temperature is also rising rapidly. By the time that Kneecap – the rap trio from Belfast and Thursday’s headline act – arrive on Green Man’s second main stage at Far Out late in the evening, it is red hot.
Nearly six hours earlier, Heartworms – the solo project of South London artist Jojo Orme – had ignited the Green Man 25 flame with a burst of serious intensity. And we were off. 30 minutes later Peiriant – the Wales-based duo of violin and electric guitar – fittingly do the same at Walled Garden, a delightful, smaller stage that nestles between Einstein’s Garden and Babbling Tongues, both of which, just like the festival’s main Mountain Stage, will click firmly into gear tomorrow.
Adwaith are a post- punk trio from Carmarthen, South West Wales and are making their fourth appearance at Green Man and they just get better each and every time. Their set oozes passion, confidence, and inspiration. It is an early delight.
With its refrain of “just too good to be true,” the old pop standard ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’ heralds the arrival of Gurriers onstage. And there is certainly a lot of truth in the sentiment as the Dublin-based band kick up a veritable storm.
Gurriers provide a perfect platform from which their fellow men from the island of Ireland Kneecap positively take off. In years of coming to Green Man I have never seen the Far Out tent so rammed, so energised, so vibrant. Playing in front of a sea of Palestinian flags, Kneecap’s message is clear and rapturously well-received. Moving beyond any controversy that may surround this band, they are mightily impressive. Their performance concludes a cracking first day of music at Green Man.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from Thursday at Green Man Festival 2025
