Go West (End of the Road Part I)

Published on Thu 17 Sep 2009

Before I start, I got the rest of my Japan pictures off the camera. Here are a few. That boot contained 2.8 litres of beer.

Last weekend I went to the End of the Road festival, which is pretty much unique among UK festivals, as far as I can tell, in that it's intended for people who actually like music. At any given time 83% of whom are wearing a checked shirt.

Four of us went - Andy, Severine and I, who left London bright and early on Friday morning, and Ciaran, who was driving up separately for complicated reasons, who spent the morning scrabbling around his flat looking for his ticket (which he found as we went past Romford). The weather was incredible and we drove along listening to the sample CD that you get with each ticket order. A lot of things sounded quite promising, and almost nothing got skipped, though I thought The Acorn sounded like a bunch of hippies and resolved not to watch them.

We stopped at Fleet services where I slightly appalled the others by Paying My Respects To The Colonel (it was 11 in the morning for God's sake - perfectly acceptable) and were held up in traffic near stonehenge (I took a picture, but it won't come off my camera), but other than that the journey was without any delays, and somehow the two cars arrived within about 10 minutes of each other. Andy, Severine and I left all our stuff in the boot to join the wristband queue because it was nearly time for Mumford and Sons but Ciaran, even though I told him to do the same, brought some bags, so decided to go and get the tent and put it up while we watched the band.

Mumford and Sons are another act I had put in the Laura Marling/Noah and the Whale painful posh mediocrity bin, and to be fair, I'm not about to listen to the album, but they were really good fun live - excellent banjo (albeit with horrible shorts), nice upright bass, spot on harmonies. Which all made it even more satisfying when about half an hour in I got a text from Ciaran that read, simply, "still pitching the shitter".

After we all pitched in to pitch the shitter, and the trusty green tent that's served me well since Glastonbury in 1998 for Severine, we headed back in (having missed Loney Dear, who were apparently amazing - missed them in Gothenburg too. Ho hum) to see David Thomas Broughton, who was the one track that got skipped on the sampler CD (it was really long), but I'd read good things about in the programme both this year and last. And was foolish enough to take them with only a small pinch of salt - it was probably the worst thing I've seen at a "proper" music event in the last five years. Well, since whenever it was Julian Cope was at the Folk Festival. And I didn't dislike him nearly as much as Andy did. Annoyingly studied Yorkshire accent, terrible, really long songs (two lots of minus 10 for use of the words progeny and piffle), loop pedal, ridiculous silk scarf, shockingly (for a pro) out of time bass player, pretty disgusting mid-song hands-free banana eating. It was baffling that anyone was clapping - I can only assume the people that were had read good things too and didn't want to appear not cool enough to like it. Ciaran invoked the "give everyone three songs" rule, but the relief was palpable when we got to go for a walk through the woods instead.

They had quite a lot of the now traditional kerazy festival art, my favourite bit was the living room made out of turf

There was a more conventional living room set up too with a piano in that you could go and play, and a sports area with table tennis, table football, skittles and various other games. Nice touch, but the queues were too long to get on any of the good things whenever we were there.

Shearwater were next up on the main stage, and I was looking forward to them, having been blown away last year. I loved every minute of it, though as with last year I can't remember anything much about individual songs - it was more about the dynamics and atmosphere, and the theatrical nature of the singer. And the smiling bass player, and the coolest drummer/clarinet player in the world. 

I like him even more now I've found out he's called Thor. I've tried to listen to the albums, but they're not as intense and I didn't really like them that much. I can't recommend the band highly enough live though. I also ended up with Thor's drum stick - he threw it, the guy in front of us plucked it skilfully out of the air, I went "aww" and he said "I don't actually want it, here you go".

Next we went to the Tipi Tent (the smallest stage) to see The Low Anthem, because I thought they'd work well at close quarters. Unfortunately the tent was right by another, much louder stage, and you couldn't really hear what was going on. That, coupled with them running 15 minutes late (I think due to the guys at the tent being a bit rubbish rather than the band being fussy) made the whole thing a bit frustrating. I'm not really sure what to make of The Low Anthem anyway - I can't figure out if the songs come from the heart or it's just some kind of art project - they sound like they should have been written 50 years ago. On the other hand there are a couple of properly beautiful ones among the hackneyed Dylan rip-offs, and the girl who seems to play everything has leapt right to the top of my People I'd Marry In A Second Without Even Getting To Know Them At All list.

We were heading to Explosions in the Sky next, but ran into the guys from The Pony Collaboration on the way, who said that The Week That Was, who were playing on the stage that ruined the Tipi Tent, were brilliant, and it was their last ever gig, so we went to check them out instead. I thought they were good - certainly original, but I think I should probably have gone to Explosions in the Sky.

After that we went to the Big Top stage to catch the end of Herman Dune, who I've not seen since whenever they played at The Portland last. One of the brothers (the weirder one) seems to have left and I think they've got a bit poppier because of it, but not too much poppier, and they're still brilliant, which made me very happy.

To round the night off we watched a bit of comedy (mostly pretty average, but Josie Long has leapt to maybe 3rd place in my People I'd Marry In A Second Without Even Getting To Know Them At All list, and Robin Ince was a cut above) and a bit of Ohbijou (who were good - we caught a bit of them on the way to Mumford and Sons too) in the Tipi Tent before I came over all tired suddenly and went back to the tent.

I have to go and watch Reaper now, then go to bed. More soon...