End of the Road Festival is one the "best kept secret" of the festival circuit
The End of the Road Festival feels like one of the best kept secrets of the festival circuit and I am loath to share it beyond the lucky 15,000 attendees.
Over 16 years, it has honed a reputation for curating an excellent selection of alternative music from around the world in the lovely setting of Larmer Tree Gardens in Dorset. This year was no exception.
After an enforced Covid hiatus in 2020, EOTR returned last year but shorn of international acts and instead featured purely UK based artists.
The 2022 edition definitely benefited from a broader palette of artists and the result was a return to its vintage best.
It has expanded over the years. Ticket numbers creep up, stages are added. Thursday’s bill has evolved from an evening to ease yourself in with a pint of scrumpy and a chance to catch a local band into a full pre-opening night.
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The contrast between the chilled out grooves Houston three-piece Khruangbin on the main open air Wood stage and the sweaty carnage of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs in the Tipi tent showed that most musical tastes would be catered for.
There is astonishing breadth to the bill, a credit to founder Simon Taffe’s eclectic but impeccable music taste, drawing in bands from as far afield as New Zealand and Libya, South Africa and Canada.
I’m not a music journo and random chats with strangers over the four days revealed that most would do a better job as reviewing many of the artists that were new to me.
But at least I too can experience the true festival joy of stumbling across something great that I’d never heard before.
And much like my horse betting strategy, I’m not against having my head turned by an amusing band name. Sniffany and the Nits and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan both got circled in the festival programme.
Highlights include BCUC from Soweto, South Africa, who transform a lazy Sunday afternoon into a sweaty Saturday night, leaving all who are lucky enough to witness them with ridiculous grins and tired limbs.
Jake Zerxes Fussell held the intimate garden stage spellbound on Sunday afternoon, the North Carolina folk singer breathing new emotional life into old songs.
Then there was the wave of adulation from all generations for The Pixies, headlining on Saturay night after a two year wait thanks to Covid.
I can only offer anecdotal evidence from regular visits to End of the Road since the late 2000s. But my experience tells me it is the best, the nicest and the driest of the English festival season.
Depressing early forecasts threatened to hole that theory. But they gave way to four days of mostly marvellous sunshine.
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The storm clouds gathered on Sunday evening, adding a backdrop of dramatic lightning strikes to the final headline set from Bright Eyes.
But the band finished up and most of us found shelter before the heavens finally opened, extinguishing the fire of a deeply satisfying weekend.
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