The elements that can make for a successful festival are both manageable and in the hands of fate. The location and facilities are key, and with End Of The Road, now already into its nineteenth year, the lush Victorian Larmer Tree Gardens, nestled on the border of Dorset and Wiltshire, resplendent with idyllic woodland stages and roaming peacocks, surely could not be improved upon? But then there is the out of control, which this year saw Saturday daytime endure the most biblical of relentlessly unbroken downpours of heavy rain from 1pm to 8pm, a challenge that required some stamina from all. Indoors, stages such as the Folly and the Big Top were packed, while the outdoor main Woods stage and Garden stage were a sea of rain macs, umbrellas, and artists apologising for the privilege of staying dry. But climate difficulties aside (and I must say the crowd took to the mud bath pathways in excellent spirits), the one thing that has always sold me on this event is the curation. In a time when something as established as the Cambridge Folk Festival is facing an uncertain “I’ll believe it when I see it” future, it is tempting to ponder that the local authority committee that ran that event were a big part of the problem. EOTR, on the other hand, is the realised field dream of a genuine aficionado, and it shows. Simon Taffe launched this two decades ago because he wanted to put on the kind of festival he would attend, with his fantasy musical lineup. It just so happens that the man who sold his house to fund the EOTR launch is also extremely passionate about music and, to my ears at least, has reliably good taste.
“What kind of music are you into?” is the question that I always find impossible to answer. I do not have one style or era that I mainly listen to; I approach music with the desire to be lit up by anything that grabs me, regardless of genre. It is clear that the organisers of EOTR share this, and the majority of the audience are on that page too. It is so hard to define true eclecticism, but I feel this is the gathering which comes closest to nailing it. Just look at this year’s offerings, we had everything from the theatrical pop sheen of headliner Self Esteem, pioneering electro dance of Caribou, fuzz guitar edginess of C Turtle, existential alt-rock mayhem from Personal Trainer, to healthy variants on folk, jazz, blues, country and rock ‘n’ roll. I even found myself dancing in a Northern Soul DJ set at one stage. And I rarely got to even scratch the surface of the spoken lectures, comedy, activities and cinema available to explore. Essentially, this is a festival where I am never at a loss for something to be entertained by or immerse myself in; if anything, it is the other end of that scale which becomes a problem. You have to make brutal choices about the performances you are going to miss because it is a logistical impossibility to see everything that sparks your interest. Sometimes you need to commit rather than attempt a double viewing and end up catching too little of either. So here are my key takeaways and shining highlights from a fully packed four days, which delivered my ideal festival situation, namely superb performances from top names and a few eye-opening unknown surprises along the way.
My long weekend kicked off over at the Folly stage, a marquee space that recreates the atmosphere of a club gig, with Anna Erhard. This proved to be a pin-sharp anticipation of the music programme to come. Hers is a unique mixture of Swiss Europeanism shot with a touch of Berlin ice, a satisfying blend of pop savvy and irreverent lyrical fireworks; it effectively hammered down the tent pegs and established our readiness for musical magic ahead.
Sharon Van Etten was the first headliner on the massive main Woods stage arena, and she instigated the first alteration to my plans. I had expected to witness the opening of her set, then move to sample something else, but this was not the Sharon I last heard live a few years ago, so I remained for the duration. An altogether different beast to the introspective singer-songwriter of the past, she has been on a gradual evolution away from that for a while now, arriving tonight as a pounding electro-pop juggernaut. Her freestyling interpretive dance moves include everything from shadow boxing, tenpin bowling arm movements and robotic indie-disco jerky flashes and she is owning this almost St. Vincent-like transformation with assuredness. Proving that “women can headline festivals”, Sharon eventually strapped on an electric guitar for some set-closing triumphant revisiting of earlier, more familiar Van Etten classics.
Friday morning brought fair warning of the oncoming festival dampness with some early showers, but these thoughts were firmly cast aside on the main stage with the contemplative Americana of Rosali, her slow-burning country guitars hanging suspended in the post-storm sunlight.
The same stage was ram-raided a little later by the phenomenal Bug Club (main image), whose wild burst of punkish energy alights the spirit of the early amplified Jonathan Richman through a hardcore Welsh prism. Fronted by Sam Willmett on guitar and vocals, alongside Tilly Harris on vocals and bass, who does so much more than merely hold down the bottom line, their dynamic hooks were a pure delight. The warm vibes were so widespread that during the song ‘Marriage,’ much to the band’s delight, there was an actual marriage proposal in the crowd.
Over at the Talking Heads stage, which is a beautiful sloping amphitheatre of a setting, Bridget Hayden And The Apparitions are observing a folk sermon that includes elegantly seasoned renditions of ‘Blackwaterside,’ ‘I Wish I Wish’ and ‘She Moved Through The Fair.’ So effectively do they cast a divine spell on the silent crowd that Bridget feels moved to demur a little and modestly introduce certain numbers as “more songs about abandonment.”
It is more folky sounds, this time of a freakier persuasion, that I turn to next on the Garden Stage. The Broadside Hacks, a collective led by Sorry’s Campbell Baum, have a rolling membership in their mission to revive timeworn material with fresh life and soul. Today, they are celebrating the music of the Incredible String Band, a presentation that is stamped with real authority thanks to the presence of original ISB member Mike Heron on the stage. It is the band’s classic psychedelic material they home in on, and it feels like a real privilege to hear songs like ‘The First Girl I Loved’ played with such dazzle. Mike himself settles for a supportive backseat role, enjoying the interpretations of the surrounding musicians and singers. However, he does become joyously animated when leading the singing on a rousing ‘A Very Cellular Song’ at the set’s conclusion.
Some swift movement allowed me to briefly catch a section of soulful, New Orleans-rooted storytelling from Sabine McCalla before returning to the Garden for the bells and vibes jangling arrival of Lisa O’Neill. As ever, Lisa holds the audience spellbound in a set of folk tunes revisiting all corners of her back catalogue, including ‘Pothole In The Sky’ and ‘Rock The Machine.’ The only glimpse offered of future music appeared in a song introduced as ‘The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right,’ one of many politically charged flag-waving moments witnessed over the weekend.
Old time songcraft and blues roots were celebrated as Saturday’s day-long deluge slowly got itself settled in. At just eighteen years of age, Muireann Bradley is already playing guitar and commanding an audience like she has been treading the boards for decades.
She points to longevity by concluding with her first original composition, having entranced us, tearing through numbers by Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotton and Memphis Minnie. Her advanced finger picking even saw next act Jerron Paxton come to the stage side and noticeably pull expressions of admiration. Jerron himself is a real eccentric US charmer who we first catch sight of onstage plugging in a domestic iron, which he applies to the face of his banjo. It transpires that this is a final attempt to get the instrument to behave before he laments its impending demise as “the end of an era.” He does get a couple of revivalist tunes out of it, but mainly rests on the vast array of additional instruments at his disposal, including keyboard (some exemplary stride piano is a thrill), guitar and harmonicas. Later, he absolutely demands some butt shaking when a set of rhythmic bones come into action. Jerron is an early Saturday highlight, but he rightly observes, as the heavy weather sets in, this is not a place to play a song lamenting dry season drought or to expect a rain dance in celebration of the wet.
It is not merely the undercover shelter that leads me over to The Folly; it was the familiar sound of the Essex of my youth pulling me in. I could have sworn I saw a Ford Xr2i wheel spinning doughnuts on the grass behind the arena, but admit the excessive wet was probably inspiring hallucinations by now. I did not dream the brilliance of Scott Lavene, though, a magnetic storyteller in song who comes over like a Romford Sleaford Mods with punkish electric guitar venom. He is no one-trick pony either, a song like ‘A Bus In July’ wrong-footing the crowd by taking a dry, humorous conversational delivery before gear changing into a convincingly executed soul boy melodic croon. Scott turned out to be a wonderful festival discovery for me. By the end, he had gone full-on Essex market trader, spinning the audience’s participation on the “I chose amphetamines over you” refrain into a cheeky sales pitch for clothing merchandise bearing that same wordage.
So, as Saturday moved forward with no sign of storm relief, my mission was to find an act whose music would detach my thoughts away from how unbelievably soaked through I was. Up stepped Emma-Jean Thackray on the Garden stage, arriving to a chorus of “happy birthday to you” from stalwart front rowers. This is an electro jazz and soul hybrid in which Emma-Jean has sought a self-confessed life-saving catharsis that can be heard on this year’s ‘Weirdo’ album. It truly grows some teeth in this live setting too, particularly ‘Maybe Nowhere’ which kicks off with a deep bass overture before lurching forward as a crunching, growling beast of a tune. Towards the end, she picks up a trumpet to “pretend I am still a jazz musician”, but there is absolutely no fakery with Thackeray; if you want to hear something real, then look no further.
There is stiff competition for my Saturday night attention, but I simply cannot turn away from the opportunity to see Throwing Muses. To say band leader and songwriter Kristin Hersh is intense is rather like describing a detonated exploding bomb as a spark lighting a match; there are not the descriptive phrases available to portray hypnotic focus like this. Currently, the Muses are a four-piece who lean into their new album ‘Moonlight Concessions’ initially but keep their foot on the accelerator for a hard grazing charge across nineties classics ‘Counting Backwards,’ ‘Shark’ and ‘Bright Yellow Gun.’ By the end of tonight, this band have ensured that any notions of being wet from rain are long forgotten; the same cannot be said for my camping tent, but that is another story.
Happily, as things fire up on Sunday, the sun is wrestling to break through, a battle it would eventually win against firm defiance. In this warm rainbow haze, Jake Xerxes Fussell’s timeless Southern folk tales feel decidedly at home, especially as he takes us on a laid-back run through Nick Lowe’s ‘I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass.’
Next, I decided to indulge in the festival’s facility for cultural diversity and briefly leave the music for some comedy. After all, one of the greatest comedians on the circuit, Stewart Lee, is about to perform, and it seems an opportunity too good to miss. He is in punchy form, even roping in a little badinage with the KLOF Mag photographer at the beginning, before cutting loose on some newly prepared jokes. In one story, he mentions waiting in the foyer at 6Music before interjecting, “That’s mecca for you lot, isn’t it?”. The line of ripping into your crowd and keeping them onside walked to precision.
Later, on that same remote Talking Heads stage, I enjoyed catching Yoshika Colwell in the flesh for the first time. The tranquil ambience of the setting suited her well as she gently caressed a borrowed acoustic guitar around songs from her recently released solo debut album.
I also caught some of Dutch Interior in The Folly tent. These young Americans, apologising for their nationality, had a similar Americana texture to Pavement, albeit a version of the band that feels rather weighed down by modern-day life in the US. By now, Sunday is revving up for a big finish, and it falls to Katy J Pearson in the Garden arena to stylishly raise the bar on melodically infused indie pop/rock of our time. Happily, at what is still a relatively early stage of her career, there are some bangers in the Pearson arsenal; ‘Talk Over Town’ especially is a rabble rouser and rapturously received, too.
Ultimately, the night belongs to the main Woods stage headliner Father John Misty. With his band all imposingly attired in three-piece suits, kind of steering them into Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds territory, he commands the stage like the hip priest we have come to expect. Funky opener ‘I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All’ establishes audience attention, and for most of the next two hours, this is a thunderous tour-de-force that reaches as far back as his 2012 debut on a pounding ‘Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings’.
Next year, End Of The Road will enjoy its twentieth anniversary and, whatever the weather, it should be a bountiful humdinger. I eagerly anticipate raising a glass to the festival that really has done it right.
End of the Road: https://endoftheroadfestival.com/