Eight days of living more life than I do in eight months; tens of bands, some of whom have got my heart beating dangerously fast for a man of such precipitous years; seeing countless friends who fill my heart with happiness and a rare sense of belonging and a whole new team of skilful friends I didn't know this time last week, but who I'm already missing; gallons of micro brewery beers, whose hoppy aftertastes have my tongue yearning and my liver twitching; handing a metal thing to a woman whose music has wound through the last five years of my life like a vein of glittering amethyst; sending Datblygu and 60ft Dolls and Genod Droog up and out over the early morning Cardiff skyline like paisley rainbows; a radio show in the back room of a pub with the boys and girls who will make the sounds of Welsh tomorrows; having my heart cracked open by a 16-year-old girl from Pembrokeshire, singing a song so soulful Otis Redding would have nodded his head as it passed; Tali Estron's tractor beam of charisma and the breathless 'oh my gods' that followed; playing Camera at 3am at Dim S诺n, and those still standing hurling themselves at the DJ booth, either trying to stop its passage or glory as it crushed its way through the last, tattered, glorious hours of this year's .
Sub-edit that sentence at your peril. That was this year's S诺n in blurred, glorious microcosm. Now the details.
I arrive in Cardiff a week early, not because I don't trust my own punctuality but because I have a breakfast show to do. S诺n Radio is one of the innovations of this year's festival... a radio station broadcasting 24 hours a day across the city, giving its programmes' custodians Ofcom-regulated free reign to delight and inspire. The entire station's output is available to listen to on Mixcloud. Notables discuss classic Welsh albums; the likes of Gruff Rhys, Pete Paphides and Spillers Records share treasure chests of glittering sounds; the Welsh Music Prize is discussed from all available angles; there are request shows and all manner of radio aces.
My nocturnal body clock migrates more easily than I'd fretted over beforehand. When you have the likes of Greta Isaac, Gulp, Casi Wyn, Zervas & Pepper, We're No Heroes and Friendly Thieves live in session the adrenaline soon mutates my owlish hoot into the loudest noise in the dawn chorus. I was at a distinct advantage, I was on FM and streamed online. The blackbirds and thrushes had no chance.
Official Day One of S诺n is Thursday. The overture to the festival is the Welsh Music Prize. I have the honour of presenting it. Other than the honour of being my daughter's dad, it's the Best Honour Ever. I have my speech on a PDF file on an iPad. I get to the lectern, in front of all the human beings I respect most in the universe, and the screen has gone blurred and illegible 鈥� but it's OK. I know how to talk. I get a cheer for mentioning 60ft Dolls. My Stereophonics comment almost derails proceedings, but I get back on track with the story of how a sound-checking Mclusky cleared every post-work solicitor out of my local venue, discarding half-full white wine spritzers on all available flat surfaces. I might have said that that was my favourite Welsh musical moment of the last two decades but that was poppycock hyperbole. Sometimes I get carried away in the moment.
So, who is going to win the Welsh Music Prize?
On a S诺n Radio discussion a couple of hours prior to the ceremony, asks me who I want to win. She prods me into not being politic.
"Georgia Ruth," I say, because it's true.
"Who do you want to win it?" she asks Marc Thomas, Welsh Music Prize organiser.
"Oh well, they're all great albums. I couldn't possibly pick one," he says, being politic.
"Who do you want to win it?" I ask Bethan, feeling increasingly stranded on a rocky, un-politic atoll in the middle of a rolling sea of mildly-aggrieved other artists from the shortlist.
"Oh, it's really hard to say. All of the albums have their own qualities. No, I couldn't pick one."
Thanks pals!
I spend a lot of time shouting loudly about artists to people. I've shouted myself hoarse about Georgia since her epiphanous first demo arrived in my inbox. The joy I felt opening that envelope and seeing Georgia's name written on the card inside was a recognisable echo of the joy I felt when I first heard her voice.
There's a video clip from Wales Today's coverage of the event as I present the prize to Georgia. I look very stern but what I'm desperate to not do is cry. Here's one of my favourite human beings receiving a very real vindication for having had the courage to follow her particular artistic vision no matter what.
I'm so happy for her and I'm a little bit happy for me. I've cried wolf so many times it's actually a relief when one turns up and eats all the sheep.
So S诺n begins with a great new memory: Georgia's smile; the fact that she's having to stand on tip-toes to reach the microphone because she'd taken her heels off; every camera in the room trained on a woman who positively radiates music.
I do an S4C interview with Huw Stephens and Nei Karadog 鈥� and promise myself in the aftermath that I will work hard on my Welsh this year. I love the language. I dropped the reins. Back for good now 鈥� like a Cofi Take That.
The adrenaline that has been building up in advance of the ceremony 鈥� because it is, by some margin, the most nerve wracking thing I've ever done 鈥� dissipates as easily as a cloud shedding rain over Llanberis. However, it does leave me feeling a bit wrung out. Sleep, apparently, isn't an optional extra.
S诺n isn't just about the music or radio presenters feeling sappy, it's also a great opportunity to catch up with friends you haven't seen for eons. Time and again over the weekend I see people who enrich my life, but usually from afar. It's affirming and joyous to be able to hang out with them without having to limit our conversation to 140 character shots of pith. So tonight, I spend a lot of my time talking to a close friend in Dempseys. I see some of Swansea's Trampolene, who have enough interesting angles 鈥� and a genuinely charismatic frontman 鈥� to imbue generic influences (Stooges, Oasis, Manics) with a real lifeforce. 'Guitar music' (the inverted commas represent two-teeth-gritted) has been chugging for attention down hick backstreets for too long now. A geek armageddon is just around the corner, triggered by a hipster beard king shorting out a Hoxton DX7, no doubt. When that happens, Trampolene are smart and sharp enough to lead the new revolution.
Jack, Trampolene's singer, collapses at the end of their set, causing some genuine concern. I used to live by the 'I can sleep when I'm dead' philosophy when I was younger; Jack is so caught up in music and his love for the band that he forgoes food. Who wants to stand in a queue in Burger King, or heat a tin of beans up on a (non-existent-when-you're-touring) hob, when there are sparks to make?
Take a breath and a bite, Jack. There's time enough for sparks *and* sarnies.
Extra portion of bar talk. Blurry. More friends melt out of the night. We drift to the Angel to see Trwbador.
Last time I saw them, they recorded electronic music but performed it, almost, as a folk duo. I loved that. Even when I'm 80 (optimistic) and deaf (realistic), I'll be glad to revel in the memory of Angharad's breathtaking, mountain stream of a voice (sentimentalist-ic). Previously, I've described her voice as one of the wonders of modern Welsh music, but that rather undersold her. Her larynx and the brain that tells it what to do are wonders of all new music.
Yes they are.
That last time I saw Trwbador (I can't remember when... give me a break, I'm 42), Angharad was a tremulous presence. It was as if one of the Cottingley Fairies was on stage. If we all breathed out, she'd blow away.
A year later, and she is an entirely different entity. She commands that stage and the audience with surety. Her luminous orange smock dress hasn't been chosen idly. She's beginning to understand, perhaps, that she has magnetism.
By the end of their set, every soul in the room has been turned to her polarity. OK, some of the older, wiser heads I'm with think they could do with a couple of straight, great songs that are less 'kooky'. I'm of the opinion that the further they stay away from The Kooks and the more kooky they are, the better.
Owain, Angharad's compadre, is great too. He's their Vince Clarke. The quiet audio manipulator, Angharad's sonic foil.
Trwbador sound very now. There is also enough of tomorrow in there for me to believe that someone, soon, will be holding back tears as they present them with a heavy bauble of Welsh Music Prize vindication.
More talking. More beers. A hilarious taxi journey home. I need to be up at five thirty. Had I mentioned that?