Some birthdays are more extra-terrestrial than others. This year, mine involved sequins, lasers and a pair of alien antennae. Because if you can’t dress up as a disco-loving visitor from space at Green Man festival, when you turn 44, then when can you?
I’ll never get bored of banging on about how lucky we are to have one of Europe’s most special music festivals right here in Wales. If you’ve never been, you’re missing out. Tickets go on sale on September 27th, so do yourself a favour and get booking (although be quick, 25,000 tickets sold out in under an hour last year).
If you have been, you understand what keeps people heading back to the tranquil hills of Bannau Brycheiniog every year. I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s only been to Green Man once. It gets into your bones.
This year’s festival felt like the best kind of birthday party, one where I didn’t have to organise a thing. I showed up with my friends, a dressing-up box, and illegal levels of excitement about allowing myself to be swept along by the magic in the mountains.
Like every year (will I never learn?) I carefully crafted a list of must-see acts before I arrived. Of course, it was doomed. At Green Man, the joy lies in ditching the plan and following recommendations from strangers in queues or friends you bump into at the bar.
Discovery is part of the DNA of Green Man. You come for big names like Kneecap, CMAT or Underworld, but you leave talking about some band you stumbled across while heading for something else entirely. That’s how I ended up watching Adult DVD and Silver Gore at the Rising Stage, two acts I had never heard of that blew me away.
That careful curation and refusal to be predictable is just part of what makes Green Man special. Fiona Stewart, the owner and director, has kept the festival fiercely independent in a landscape where global corporations like LiveNation have snapped up most large events. That independence matters. It’s why the bars pour local beers and ciders rather than bland multinational lager, why the line-up mixes legends with the as-yet-unknown, and why the entire event feels like a warm community gathering. It has soul, and you feel it in every corner of the Glanusk estate.
Every year, Green Man reminds me how much adults need places to play. As children, we’re encouraged to run wild, invent games, and make-believe. Somewhere along the way, life closes in around us and those playful opportunities disappear, replaced by jobs, bills, and responsibilities. Festivals are a kind of “third space,” outside work and home, where the rules soften and silliness is celebrated. You can dress as a disco alien or giant pom pom and dance barefoot in the grass without anyone raising an eyebrow. That freedom is beautiful and deeply restorative. I’ve only been home for two days, and I miss it already.
Mind you, that kind of partying comes at a cost at this age. After staying up ramble-chatting until sunrise in the pine forest on my birthday (no regrets), I was bleary-eyed and in no fit state to keep going on Sunday. But I was desperate to squeeze every drop out of the last night.
Instead of collapsing in my sleeping bag, I did the most middle-aged, first-world festival thing imaginable: marched to the wellness field and signed myself up for a medically-prescribed revitalising IV infusion. Within minutes, I was lying back while a festival medic hooked me up to a drip, like a phone on 2% battery finally plugged into the mains. Twenty minutes of fluids later, I went from husk to hedonist, buzzing with enough energy to throw myself straight back into Sunday night. Just call me Last-Night-Lazarus.
The woman next to me proudly boasted it was her second drip treatment of the weekend, which made me think this might be the future of raving over 40. We used to swear by Berocca, bacon sandwiches and blind optimism. Now it’s intravenous drip bags and electrolytes. You may call it cheating, but I regret nothing. Whatever gets you through the night.
This year, as ever, I was reminded of how beautifully Green Man makes space for everyone. My neurodivergence means I can find big events overwhelming. But the respite tent, the clear signage, and the brilliant accessibility team make such a difference. Green Man has rightly won awards for inclusivity and accessibility, and you can feel the thought that goes into making sure people of all abilities can enjoy the weekend.
The sense of care extends beyond the festival, too. Through the Green Man Trust, ticket money supports community projects, trains refugees, and commissions artists. Over £72,000 has been raised for local grassroots projects in Wales over the last two years alone, from youth arts programmes to vital community services. It’s a good feeling to know that when you buy a ticket, you’re investing in far more than a weekend of music and magic. You’re helping to sustain communities, nurture creativity, and change lives.
Turning 44 in this utopia, with the mountains wrapped around us like a warm hug, felt like the most precious gift. A proper midlife celebration, and a reminder that joy doesn’t need to fade with age. I can still watch the sun come up twice in one weekend, still dance 40k steps in light-up daps and still find new music to fall in love with.
I may have packed away the alien-in-Studio-54 costume, but the shimmering memories still glow like a secret power source, keeping me counting down the months until we gather again in the Bannau.
Here’s to Fiona Stewart, her crack team of magic makers and a small army of hard-working volunteers. And here’s to Green Man, the best birthday party I could ever hope for. I mean, how lovely of 25,000 people to show up for it. Same time next year?
silverdiscodaps.com 
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