Words: Adam Turner and Ben Pikssoc
Pictures: Parri Thomas ®
There are some people who just don’t like festivals. Say, for example, those who don’t like boozing for four days straight. Or folk who find massive crowds nothing but anxiety-provoking. Light sleepers, perhaps, who despair at the thought of being cooped in a sweaty tent for days, listening to groups of pissed-up people talking nonsense and pratting around until the wee hours. Or germaphobes who detest the idea of washing in communal showers and doing their business in filthy bogs. Then there are the proper musos who get wound up seeing daft flags and people hoisted on shoulders screaming the wrong words to songs they don’t even know. With all that said, End of the Road is as much a festival for people who don’t like festivals as it is for those who do.
Why? Well, it’s beyond cliché to say this little festival, located in the gorgeously green Larmer Tree Gardens, is different from others, but it is. There’s no pressure to get hammered every day – though you can. The crowds aren’t overbearing or particularly rowdy. There’s loads of space to camp, and the quiet area is as close to serene as you’ll find at any festival. The showers, though not precisely plentiful, are clean. You’re unlikely to find pissed-up people on shoulders, getting in the way, and there’s rarely a six-foot stick with a giraffe’s head in sight. The audience is almost guaranteed to be there for the music – not just the Instagram accolades. These are all reasons why people return year in and year out, including us.
There was trepidation in the air on the eve of the festival this year. Rain was forecast for the whole day on the opening Thursday. A Thursday that wasn’t so much a warm-up as a boil-up, with the festival hitting the ground running at full speed. End of the Road is a magical place that can do funny things to people. Thankfully, the weather got the message, and a scheduled downpour never materialised. And the sun got brighter and brighter as the days went on.
This year’s lineup included the likes of Wilco, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Fatouma Diawara – all big hitters but not as alluring to the folk we spoke to as perhaps in previous years. But as we’re reminded by Ray, one of End of The Road’s regular punters, who’s been coming since the beginning, “That’s why I love this festival. You can turn up not knowing anyone and leave with a new favourite band.”
Ray’s right, of course. What makes End of the Road so special is how you can walk into the Big Top (a tented stage) oblivious to who’s playing and leave with the artist’s songs queued on your Spotify, eagerly waiting for an Internet signal to listen on repeat. Also, it’s almost sure that the bands you’re watching will go on to bigger things – previous alums include Laura Marling, Beirut, Kurt Vile, Sigur Ross, Big Thief and many more. Just flick through previous lineups if you don’t believe us.
The Last Dinner Party are on a similar, almost intergalactic trajectory to those mentioned above, having amassed a cult following at live shows and garnered over eight million Spotify listens on their hit single ‘Nothing Matters’ released earlier this year. As punters, they’ve also been coming to End of the Road for years. But under a slate grey sky, they take the Woods Stage on Thursday, announcing this is their pyramid stage. The band puts on a decent show in warming up for Wilco in trying conditions.
Wilco headlining EOTR feels a little bit like cheating. Opener Handshake Drugs occupies the place of a slowly building motif for the rest of their excellent career-spanning set. ‘Random Name Generator’s’ instantly recognisable guitar riff gets the heads nodding, offsetting the lightness of touch in songs like ‘Jesus Etc.’ A wonderfully epic ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)’ sends people into the woods with big grins.
The problem with EOTR – if you can call it that – is you could make a case for wanting almost any band to be on at the Garden Stage – arguably the best festival stage in the world. “The Garden Stage is my favourite by far. It was the main stage until they introduced the Woods Stage.” A forty-something couple say outside the Big Top – a massive circus-like tent usually home to the festival’s DJs, like Overmono. Panda Bear and Sonic Boom put on a hell of a show on Friday with Edge of the Edge’ – from their excellent 2022 album ‘Reset’ – reverberating around every inch of the tent and going down an absolute treat.
However, early on Friday, End of the Road threw up the biggest surprise of the day (at least to one of us) when Royel Otis hit the Woods Stage early doors. The young Aussie surf rock band get the slightly thick-headed crowd dancing from the off, and they never stop. The Sydney natives sound like the best bits of 1988-era Sarah Records and Captured Tracks circa 2012. Their gossamer dual guitar attack was chiming at its most janglesome. ‘Oysters in my Pocket’ sparkles, ‘Sofa King’s louchey sweariness is Michael Stipe at his most unintelligible and just as good. They look every bit like a band with longevity who will probably be headlining in a few years.
This happens a lot at the End of the Road, a gradual, almost natural progression from an early slot to a late one, from a small stage to the main stage. Unknown Mortal Orchestra remind us of this when they tell crowds on Friday evening that they remember playing to about 15 people here many moons ago. It’s not pedestrian but doesn’t feel big enough for the Woods on Friday evening. Elsewhere, Angel Olsen, who clashes with Unkown Mortal Orchestra, dazzles crowds dashing between the two stages with her soft, ethereal brilliance.
But every ying needs a yang, and to this end, new Domino Records signees Fat Dog arrive in an also warming-up-nicely Big Top. Their music is very easily defined as being completely undefinable. A wondrous horror show of oilskin sou’wester hats, rave-producing laptops and synchronised dancing, sounding like the most hellish house band around. Frontman Joe, all bouncing hair and jogging bottoms, soon bore off the stage. He checks on the little ones at the barrier with a nod and a thumbs-up before creating crowd-conduced chaos.
End of the Road always has a few tricks up its sleeve – that’s part of the charm. They usually feature surprise gigs and talks at smaller stages in the woods, for example. But it’s on the main stage this time, and by Saturday morning, it’s hardly a surprise to anyone. Wet Leg, who decided to form the band when on a Ferris wheel at End of the Road, drew one of the biggest weekend crowds on Saturday, coasting through their psych rock hits to fans singing along at the front.
Another turn-up for the books is Future Islands, who spring a surprise headlining The Woods on Saturday night. Frontman Samuel T. Herring is the obvious focal point, but beyond him, a power trio (keys, bass, drums (no guitars, please) playing as if their lives depend on it. There’s something of the devil’s work, not just the left-handed drummer or Herring’s mildly possessed jerkiness. You feel that he would clasp us with both hands to sing directly into our faces individually to elicit a response if he could. An annoying beach ball – off-brand for End of the Road – in the crowd is dispensed, as it’s affecting his ability ‘to try and make people cry out here.’
Once the high-kicking cossacking hits – during ‘A Dream of and Me’ – he’s got us. ‘Seasons (Waiting on You)’ ends with a long, loud ovation before the band jumps straight into the double banger combination of ‘Long Flight’/’Tin Man’, which features more David Brent-style dancing. Finishing off with the melt-your-heart/sunset vibe of the speedy steroid-indebted ‘Vireo’s Eye’ before breaking us completely with ‘Little Dreamer’ – looking around, even the sturdiest mascaras were starting to run.
Though Lee Fields, announced as ‘the last living soul singer,’ by his band added a bit of sugar to the tea on Sunday afternoon as the sun went down. The crowd’s excitement was almost tangible as the 73-year-old enigmatic sang, ‘Ladies’ in a paisley green suit and the charisma of a young James Brown. Fatouma Diawara impressed later on, too, as red-eyed, hungover punters went from gentle foot tapping to full-blown grooving as the Mali-born afro beats star hypnotised crowds with her joyful music and mesmerising dance moves – at one point spinning like a top and collapsing to the ground.
However, as mentioned before, the magic at End of the Road is usually found at the Garden Stage – an unrivalled space surrounded by trees, shrubs and flowers with the occasional peacock passing by. Arooj Aftab put on a mesmeric, almost meditative show for punters looking for something more sedate. But it was once again a band many had never heard of that provided the goods.
Floodlights took the stage on a sunny afternoon on Sunday, captivating the chap in front, who progressed from a gentle nod of appreciation to a full-blown head nod that Churchill the dog would be proud of. Nullarbor – a song about a long road trip to the arse end of nowhere in Australia – gripped all in attendance as frontman Louis Parsons wiped the sweat from his brow, declaring, “This one’s about a trip equivalent of going to London to, I dunno, Wales” as the crowd chuckled. The Modern Lovers-sounding singer waltzed through the set, looking pensive and intense as crowds hung on his every word not wanting the full thing to end.
Tuckered from another superb onslaught of musical genius, it’s time for one final revelation in the Follies (a smaller tented stage). Yot Club, the one-person band that is Ryan Kaiser from Mississippi, was unlucky to be up against Ezra Furman (who knocked her last gig for a while out of the park) and Aussie’s King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard but sent home his synthy, almost Daniel Johnson-esque performance to a small but excited crowd, finishing with his biggest hit, Japan. As newfound fans raced to the merch stand. Two fans had a bit of back-and-forth about who was in the queue first before the more aggravated one of the two presented his palm for a handshake and said, “We both know it’s impossible to fight at End of the Road” concluding what is the best festival in the UK.
Fact box
Tickets for End of the Road 2024 are on sale now at endoftheroadfestival.com.
