Postcard 09: 19/03/2024.
As modern philosophers Boyz II Men said, this week we've come to the End of the Road.
Alright. It’s finally happening. Buckle up folks; this week I’m talking to you about End of the Road, the best festival in the world.
Anyone who’s known me for more than about 5 seconds has probably experienced the fevour to which I speak about this little festival. In that vein, I’m going to start with with a quick qualifier; I don’t think anything I can write here can do justice to my feelings about this place, as I think to do so would require an essay longer than anyone has the patience to read. So I’m gunna stick to the main facts of the case. Run during the last weekend of the summer at Larmer Tree Gardens in Dorset, End of the Road is a bastion of music appreciation and discovery. Despite its origins within the folk/americana scene, it has now evolved to a point where over the course of its five days you can hear something from almost every concievable genre, all within a 5 minute walk of your current location. I had a look back at my list of bands I saw last year to support this point, and found that a particularly great run was seeing experimental hip hop (They Hate Change), drone metal (BIG|BRAVE), and anthemic indie folk (MF Tomlinson) in a row early Saturday afternoon. It simply has an impeccably curated lineup, put together by people who really fucking love music.
But beyond the facts of spotting who played before they got big (e.g. Big Thief being at the bottom of the 2016 lineup poster) or who they managed to snag as headliners before they got stadium-sized (looking back at Tame Impala and The War on Drugs headlining in 2015 is insane), End of the Road has wedged itself in my heart for the feeling that it evokes. I have a distinct memory of attending for the first time and realising that the festival I’d been dreaming of for years actually exists; a place where people truly love music and what music can bring to us communally. Every year at End of the Road I witness bands surprised and moved by the reverance, attention and care that the audience of the festival shows them, and in turn I see that make for some of the most incredible performances I’ve seen.
I honestly believe I’ve experienced the full range of human emotion within the bounds of that festival campsite. I have felt ecstatic joy as The Flaming Lips blasted out an almost perfect setlist to a crowd that before they’d come on stage had done an impromptu singalong to ‘Psycho Killer’. I have wept by myself watching Sufjan Stevens soundcheck his set, and then wept again later that evening as he played to an enraptured crowd. I’ve felt abject terror and anxiety watching Low perform Double Negative, and I’ve felt serenity hearing Modern Nature play Island of Noise in full as my friends had a mass snooze in the sun. I have felt very, very drunk; particularly after my pals and I immediately finished a crate of beer my parents had just delivered to us during Courtney Marie Andrews. I have felt like the coolester mother fucker in the room watching my friends absolutely rip up the Cider Bus dance floor on the last night of the festival, and then pissed myself laughing five minutes later as one of them reappeared in a Pope outfit (shoutout to Kevin you hero). There are too many memories to share here, but all of them are ones that I actively treasure.
This year will mark my 10th anniversary (!!) of going to End of the Road. It’ll also mark the 8th anniversary with my partner Meg, who I met there on a compost heap at 2 in the morning, and without whom my life would not be the same. It’s one of the last places I saw my mum be truly happy and in her element before she died. It is simply put, my second home, and I really hope you’ll all come and visit me there this year.
To prepare you for what’s to come, I’ve put together a postcard for you that highlights some of the bands playing EOTR this year. It’s an odd mix, but then again that’s a reflection of the festival overall. Hopefully it provides you with a little taste of the eclecticism on offer across the weekend.
Every year there’s a band I fall in love with in early January during the spell of listening to records I missed in the previous year and every year I am delighted to find them nestled in the lower levels of the EOTR lineup when it’s announced a few weeks later. This year that band is Bonny Doon, a group from Detroit that make music that was born to be soaked up in the hazy afternoon light of late summer. I originally stumbled across them via the excellent substack of the music critic Josh Terry in his 60 records from last year roundup (if you’re not subscribed already it is essential that you do so immediately); my interest was immediately piqued on discovering they acted as the backing band for Waxahatchee on her phenomenal album Saint Cloud and its accompanying tour (the follow up, Tigers Blood, is out at the end of this week. Judging from the singles, it should be a very worthy successor). However I didn’t expect to find a band as warm, as optimistic, and as smart as Bonny Doon are. They have an uncanny ability to start a song in a way that you can predict exactly where it’s going to go, but along the way it ends up surprising you all the same. The track I’ve picked here, ‘Naturally’, is a perfect summation of their laidback, wistful sound.
Equally, the End of the Road announcement always gives me an opportunity to reevaluate someone on the lineup who I’ve maybe looked over previously. I have never really been a fan of IDLES; not for any particular reason, they’re just a band that skirted by me, despite glowing praise and being consistently in the top 10 of Resident Records albums of the year. I’ve watched them go through the blog hype/BBC6 obsession/backlash/acceptance cycle from a distance, and assumed that they would remain a band that I left to others. But their appearance as a headliner this year led me to their recent record TANGK, and man have I been surprised. By now you are probably aware that I am a man who loves texture in his music, and this album is absolutely loaded with production choices that surprised and excited me. ‘Grace’, one of the singles from the record, is a great case in point; for the duration of the song there’s always something at the edge of your hearing, some weird note that hovers in the background. The moments of release when these explode to the foreground in a way that retains their subtly are just fantastic.
Finally, I’m really excited to see an old favourite on the lineup who I’ve never caught live before. I picked up The Following Mountain by Sam Amidon in the nonesuch record sale a fair few years ago now on a whim, and it quickly became a little favourite of mine. It’s an ecclectic and odd record, that delivers as much abrasion and experimentation as it does beauty. The track I’ve selected here, ‘Another Story Told’, is a personal favourite for the haunting violin solo that overwhelms the latter half of the track, but I also love the weirdly aggressive percussion and almost trap-like beat that runs throughout the song. I have no idea what to expect from a live set by Sam, but I know it’ll be worth your time.
Here’s the Tidal link for you once again for all you fellow music snobs. I hope you find something that tickles your fancy in this postcard, but if not, check out the lineup which I’ve included at the bottom of this post; I’m sure there’s something for you there.
Postcard 09: 18/03/2024.
ML Buch - Pan over the hill
Flamingods - Adana
Nation of Language - Spare Me the Decision
Nourished by Time - Rain Water Promise
Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers
Bonny Doon - Naturally
IDLES - Grace
Sam Amidon - Another Story Told
Blue Lake - Bloom
Lankum - Lord Abore and Mary Flynn