GREEN MAN FESTIVAL 2013

Patti Smith will headline the opening night of this year’s Green Man Festival. The luminary of the New York punk scene whose music showed a poetic path forward for rock has continued to make startling albums, such as last year’s excellent Banga, and recent shows have seen the 66-year-old in fine fettle despite her recent admission to the Guardian newspaper that, due to a sickly childhood, she “didn’t expect to live a long time”.

Taking place in the bucolic surroundings of the Brecon Beacons, South Wales, the 2013 Green Man Festival already features Midlake, The Horrors, Roy Harper, Villagers, Swans, John Cale, Low, Steve Mason, Edwyn Collins, Phosphorescent and Julia Holter.

Smith will top the bill on the Far Out stage on Thursday, August 15 with support coming from British folk-prog-pop maestro Matt Berry, Mekons founder Jon Langford and Manchester four-piece Money. Being a poet and all, maybe she’ll also pop along to The Conversation at the new Spoken Word & Literature Stage to hear talks from Robert Wyatt, James Yorkston and Julian Cope.