It did rain, yes. It was not warm. And at certain points during the evening you could see the breath coming out of people's mouths like smoke on a cold night. There was something in the bumpf about being prepared and making sure you had sunscreen - and indeed, The Observer was giving it away on the Sunday - but the organisers really needn't have worried: this was Wales, after all, and it was positively autumnal (wintry) for most of the 2008 Green Man Festival, save for a spring-like and vaguely balmy Thursday and Friday. Twisted Ear did not get sunburnt, but thanks The Observer for its concern.

Twisted Ear has been to three Green Mans and loved them all. Each has been wet. This was probably the wettest. And even though it's illogical to be happy about pulling on wellies at silly o'clock to drag yourself to the loo after a day of slow and sustained cider drinking, illogical to be admiring the way the cold, wet mist hugs the Black Mountains that surround the festival site, you can't help it. The Glanusk Park Estate, home to the festival since 2006, is a beautiful setting, fitting the festival's relaxed and gentle air perfectly.

Lots of smaller festivals have sprung up in recent years and many of them have since fallen by the wayside. Green Man has been around since 2003 and is still going strong. Organisers Jo, Danny and Fiona care about the music they put on and whilst you won't find the latest NME/Pitchfork darlings here, if you come with an open mind you're guaranteed to discover new favourites of your own.

The site has three musical stages - the main stage, facing out into a natural amphitheatre with the Sugar Loaf Mountain as a backdrop; the Folkey Dokey stage, a large tent towards the back of the festival; and the small Green Man Café stage, in a courtyard between the two. There is also The Rumpus Room (a large DJ tent), a science and cinema tent, a literature tent and various little marquees for children's activities. With a 10,000 capacity this remains a small festival, but there's a lot to see and do. This is what Twisted Ear saw and did...

Friday

The first day of Green Man 2008 is sunny, sort of, and the most immediately noticeable thing about this festival - as opposed to any of the three others we have covered this year - is that there are wasps. Lots and lots of them, including two hovering menacingly between the inner and outer layers of the Twisted Ear tent. And yes, I do realise that this is an irrelevant and not particularly interesting fact with which to open a festival review, but it makes for an alarming start to the weekend and I am not the only person to notice: our neighbour also wakes up with two wasps (politely asking them to leave rather than flapping around like a maniac, as is my wont).

(Fortunately, one of the writers of this review remains unphased by wasps and was able to despatch them quite swiftly).

Into the arena, then. Cats in Paris open proceedings with their sharp-minded pop-hybrids on the main stage on a largely sunny Friday, and in the Folkey Dokey tent the Green Poll winners, Booger Red, kick things off. King Creosote notices the wasps - where on earth have they come from?

Maybe James Yorkston brought them - he's here every year, after all, and perhaps he wanted to bring something extra in his rucksack. He can often be seen wandering about the festival site when he isn't playing and is much-loved at Green Man; he has packed out the Folkey Dokey tent in the past. His main stage set is, like everybody else's, quite brief, but at least Moving Up Country perfectly matches everyone's chillaxation and loafing, just about managing to raise the energy to flop marvellously out of the speakers.

There's always a band at every festival that wins shedloads of fans and becomes the unexpected hit of the weekend for many. It's never someone you expect - they're often on the undercard - and at Green Man 2008, Seattle's Cave Singers are that band. They get the Folkey Dokey crowd dancing with Dancing on Our Graves and Seeds of Night and create an atmosphere that spreads through the tent like some sort of gypsy folk happy virus - in complete contrast to the staid turpor of what is to follow. This trio are purposefully upbeat; there's nothing gloomy here, no self-indulgence - their music is as strident as punk but the band uses this momentum for celebration, not destruction...so get celebrating. Now.

How to follow that? Right. I should probably like Black Mountain, because I am a sucker for thudding great riffs and big fat treacly guitars. But here's the thing: they're deathly, deathly dull. They've got a song called Don't Run Our Hearts Around, which is great on record but here in the live setting seems to have an anaesthetic effect. Years ago I saw someone asleep at a gig and never understood how that could possibly happen, but Black Mountain have - metaphorically at least - opened my eyes.

It goes without saying that their won't be much between-song interaction between Spiritualized and the Green Man crowd. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to get any form of verbal acknowledgement out of mainman Jason Pierce. This is gospel drone-rock after all, so should you expect any ad-lib communication from the man who's made a career out of singing about the man downstairs, and all his demons, only to make penance with the Big Guy upstairs? The bulk of tonight's material comes from this year's Songs In A&E, and its new streamlined simplicity suits Spiritualized just fine: backed by a slimmed down band and gospel singing duo, songs like Sweet Talk and Death Take Your Fiddle don't need symphonic decorations to maintain their emotional resonance, a feat Pierce now manages with a blissful Daniel Johnston naiviety. Old favourites appear (Shine A Light and closing with the blues blizzard of Spacemen 3's Take Me To The Other Side) showering us with moments of forgotten brilliance, but cast aside from bandmates and at a right angle to the dewy-eyed crowd, a sole (spot)light does shine down upon Pierce. Is it a sign? Is He calling? Fortunately, it remains unanswered. Instead he turns, silently thanks us and disappears: still on our side, at least for the time being.

Saturday

At what other festival can you get all educated about science whist kicking back with a pint of dodgy cider? Well, Camp Bestival actually, but here at Green Man they've gone one better and brought in a proper lecturer, Dr Mark Lewney, to give an hour-long talk about string theory. Sounds dull, right? Ah, but actually, Lewney - winner of FameLab, the science world's equivalent of Pop Idol - is not your average boffin. He stands on stage with an electric guitar to perform Rock in 11 Dimensions, a talk about sound, string vibrations and, well, the universe. A lot of the concepts are very difficult to grasp but his charisma and humour has an audience, whose ages range from about 5 to over 50, absolutely enthralled. After his slot, scientists from the Institute of Physics perform some experiments that are easier to understand or just plain daft (soap and CDs in a microwave, anyone?) - but Lewney's the real star here. He's tipped for a career as a TV presenter and I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see that happen, so remember the name.

Ethan Miller is better than Hendrix. There, I said it. Received wisdom dictates that historical icons are there to be worshipped not buried, but too often those worthy of celebration today are themselves buried amidst decades of adulation for their forebears. Forget the past, enjoy the now: right here on the main stage. Miller is the jackal-voiced dynamo behind the unalloyed wreckless blues-soul of Howlin' Rain, a band making more sense in the face of Wales' bone-quivering elemental static than it has any right to. Miller, carving circular and stress-defying shapes, plays things cool and loose; riding with, taming and controlling the blissful errant force of nature channelled through his guitar: from tender signatures to turbo-charged amp-aching his playing remains constantly, and animatedly, indispensable. The rest of the band fall in line, not through mandate but through wonder. As witness to their baying passion and frenzied vitality, they're not alone.   

Beating harder than the rain (just) is the Junior Boys' hi-tech digi soul. I say "just" because the task in these Canadians' hands is the musical equivalent of pissing in the wind: exactly how can you make people dance in these rainswept pier-end storm conditions? They do try hard, with two new tracks signalling a new funk direction Prince-wards. It's poetic to think, in amongst all the whipsmart stellar electronica, that in the touching, yearning, searching eloquent whisper of Jeremy Greenspan's voice, he once suffered just as much as we are right now.  

It's as ruthless indoors as it outside, with Archie Bronson Outfit kicking up their misbehaving blues stink. Under the canvas roof of the Folkey Dokey tent, it sounds even better: malingering guitars brawl alongside the soiled basslines and beligerent drumming but within this condensed space it makes for a gratifyingly tetchy affair. Just as bedraggled is the singing contradiction that is Sam Windett: cracked, resolutely coarse and on the brink of collapse, he's the brittle glue that bonds these maliciously disparate elements together. They're not not shy on thrills either with the foreboding frenzied triumvirate of Dead Funny, Cherry Lips and Dart For My Sweetheart creating an ecstatic set-climaxing crescendo. Soaked and freezing to the core, now add 'shaken'.

Earlier in the year Super Furry Animals made a wish. That wish was to play this year's Green Man festival. That wish came true. Not only did they play but, as you'd expect on native soil, they headlined, attracting the biggest crowd of the weekend by some distance. Partisan spectators or not, for a band built on a reputation of being wonderfully ingenious masterminds, the expectation is that they'd accelerate their trajectory of cosmic pop buffonery and transmit something truly transcendentally memorable. That interplanetary moment of unity never arrived. Maybe the heavenly bodies were misaligned? Maybe the ley lines didn't wield enough power? Maybe we've seen all this before.

It's sad to report that Super Furry Animals, as a live entity, appear to be running out of steam. Languid, apathetic and no fun, they've reached the point where their novel entertainment and multi-coloured stage props have rapidly become schtick: familiar distractions masking a toothless set-list. Anyone acquainted with a SFA performance could be assured of several visuals -  Power Rangers helmets, robo-vocals, crisp/veg munching - and this wouldn't be so bad if their accompanying soundtrack wasn't so predictable, and so, unpredictably, listlessly executed. Juxtapose With You flounders as a loving call to arms, Receptacle For The Respectable relies too heavily on pantomime, Zoom! and If You Don't Want Me To Destroy both become slow-motion trials of endurance, even Gruff Rhys is untypically tongue-tied: everything that was once so endearing becomes annoying. Let me assure you, The Man (who's here en masse with his nuclear wife and children) really doesn't give a flying fuck.

Sunday

One of the local(ish) buzz bands of the moment, Los Campesinos! are something of a disappointment: you can tell that they're trying to be bright and breezy and a little bit edgy, there's an awkward-gaited gang mentality to them; a twitchy adolescent secondary school Belle & Sebastian making a stand to the playground bully who regularly nicks their dinner money. It's uptempo, it's restless, but also shrill, volatile and, as is always the way with a clique, not altogether engaging for many outside their own circle. Twisted Ear wanders off to check out Green Man's Wishing Tree instead, where festivalgoers have tied wishes written on luggage labels to branches of a tree to the side of the stage. The requests range from the personal and profound ("I wish for a baby") to the rather more ambitious ("I wish to be in Star Wars"): whether one person's request for their own private detective agency has come through is yet to be confirmed...

Judging by the crowd that stands firm in drizzling rain for her, Laura Marling is quite popular. She is only 18 years old and already Mercury nominated, and although she's not actually doing anything groundbreaking her set, which sees her accompanied by members of Mumford and Sons, also appearing at the festival, is well-received.

If the BBC were looking for a new angle to their seasonal singing talent quests, then how about an indie version? They could scour these isles looking for ape-shouldered syllable-challenged singing males and call it How Do You Solve A Problem Like Liam? Seriously, my BBC Director General namesake should greenlight this shit, it's ratings gold. During the regional heats, as a budget cutting exercise, the Welsh contenders could be formed entirely from The Peth's male singing contingent. Aaah, The Peth: a ten-strong Super Furry Animals side project, whose sole selling point (let's cut to the chase: their music is dog-rough and about as inspired and exciting as a hiccupping turd) is the inclusion of "Hollywood superstar", chip shop-owner battering and perennial tabloid bumhole Rhys Ifans. So, on the evidence of a home fixture in Green Man's Folkey Dokey tent, and with jury safely stood in attendance, can Ifans sing? No. Can Ifans emit a bellow resembling an eggy guffcloud speedily passed through a cracked bumpipe? Of course. But then Rhys Ifans is an actor, so whilst his dialogue coach for this role is easily traced to any cage in a Cardiff Bay dogs' home, the acting-the-part bit must be a doddle, right? Sadly it isn't, aside from the Gallagher primate swagger (a frontman inspiration also drawn upon by Ifans' male singing companion - a man-boobed, lank-haired Nicky Wire lookalike), this singing live lark is Ifans' comfort zone shredding, petrifying white-knuckle ride - literally, given his fingers remain clamped with fear to the mike stand for the set's entirety. Make no mistake, he's visibly shitting it. Given the newspaper reputuation "the star of Notting Hill" has as a resident barfly, I find it somewhat ironic that the only thought rattling around my brain whilst listening to The Peth's lumpen performance is that somewhere - somehow -  there's a Welsh pub missing it's band. 

What's immediately obvious about The National, much more than any other band on at this time of day (and possibly even throughout the festival) is that they are adored. You get the feeling that people have come to Green Man just to see them; they seem to inspire an ardour in their fans and you can bet that the front two rows have probably seen every show they've done this year. And when vocalist Matt Berninger - with a curdling baritone reminiscent of Tindersticks' Stuart Staples and the robotic onstage spasms of Ian Curtis - announces that this is the band's last show for "a long time" the fervour is whipped up a notch. The Boxer-heavy set - which sees the band accompanied by a duo on brass - opens with Start A War and ends with Berninger jumping into the crowd and going walkabout during the final, climactic song Mr November, giving various audience members a chance to exercise their pipes. Less curdled baritone, more murdered baritone from those surprise guest conritributors. So that's the National: gone for a while, but not forgotten.

Back in the Folkey Dokey tent Nina Nastasia provides a masterclass in guitar finger picking majesty and tender but bruised tales. She is self-effacing on stage and although it's a cliché to say this she doesn't really need to be extravagant; the music is enough. The set even includes a love song about when two cryogenically frozen heads thaw; the audience loves it, and her.

I have a theory when it comes to festival performances and it goes something like this: put any woman on stage with an instrument - maybe a wooden mop wearing spectacles, a pair of fake boobs and a banjo - and it's guaranteed that a phalanx of men of a certain age, who should know better, will be present, four-deep, front and central, armed with a well-trained camera phone. It's what I refer to as 'the Joanna Newsom Effect' - a pretty girl distraction from the music - and it's in evidence during Magick Markers' appearance. The Markers, a Sonic Youth-inspired squally cacophony of drums and guitar, are a two-piece fronted by the demurely retro-attired Elisa Ambrogio - last seen in these parts at last year's Green Man alongside Ben Chasny as part of Six Organs of Admittance - whose off-kilter bewitchment, drawing straight lines between The Stepford Wives and The Wicker Man, places a weak-kneed schoolboy hex on the male throng. Shame, because beneath Magik Markers' dissonant crackle of distortion comes something stark, something avant-garde, something alluring that clouds your thoughts and squats in your head. It's what they call hypnotic. 

I'm sure no-one knew quite what to expect from Caribou. They'd have an inkling, I guess; the twee melodic reflections and happy-clappy shuffle of Andorra tracing the outline: relaxed and relaxing, sure, but never rousing. Unless you've witnessed the-band-formerly-known-as-Manitoba performing live before, the set-up - glockenspiel, guitars, keyboards and, crucially, two drum kits - would lend some further clues, but firmly in darkness is where we're expectantly in residence. Care for some illumination?

The shockwaves start, just as they'll continue, with multi-instrumentalist Dan Snaith and three bandmates, pounding their way through tight-knit constructions with an escalating intensity and freedom. It's the twin-drum assault that does it: orchestrating, synchronizing, expanding, instensifying, pleasuring, blurring and elongating the experience. The barriers between Up In Flames, Milk of Human Kindness and Andorra all melt away to form a nebulously awe-inspiring set - the lilting She's The One providing pause to allow time and space chance to reconfigure. With the galloping euphoria of After Hours, and the majestic moon-gazing evolution of Crayon's twinkles to Birthday's magnetic thunder we're a world away from the Welsh here and now, and possibly another dimension.

I'm in danger of over-exaggerating and blowing this out of all proportion, it is a just a band after all, a band who, given their majorette proficiency, must have a lot of the drum patterns and climaxes pre-figured and rehearsed to a tee, thus extinguishing imporvisation. But that's missing the point; to deny Caribou is to hate them. I ignored pre-meditated constraints, ignored my personal space being jostled to an early grave, in fact I ignored everything. I was but a speck of response to Caribou's unifying, pulsing musical synthesis: a wide-eyed speck, a grinning speck, an enlivened and enlightened speck, an illuminated speck. A speck among many.

So Green Man didn't get the nice weather. For most of the festival people were not able to lounge about on the slopes, lazily taking in the main stage, or slouch on the logs that had been laid out by the (doubtless rather soggy) campfire. But then nobody can control the weather, and even in such sloppy and rather chilly conditions the festival manages to retain its charm. When you schlep back through glistening mud, cold rain soaking its way down your neck (note to self: get a better waterproof), and you still think the place looks quite beautiful - you know you're somewhere special. Maybe next year Green Man will be warm and sunny, but don't let that put you off if it isn't.

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