THE END OF THE ROAD FESTIVAL
Larmer Gardens, Dorset, Sept. 14th – Sept. 17th 2007

I’ll admit I’m not generally an outdoor festival guy, and I’m also somewhat suspicious of the whole ‘summer-festival-as-easygoing-weekend-break’ concept that’s led to a glut of new festivals such as this one scattered across the British countryside, and the middle pages of the weekend broadsheets, in the past few years. So, although there were enough good names on the line-up and enough pals in attendance to persuade me to lay down the cash for a ticket to this one in the hope of some good times, between you and me, my hopes for full-scale awesomeness weren’t high.

Well if I wore a hat, I’d be eating it, because End Of The Road was an absolute blast. Undoubtedly the most fun and idyllic music-related weekend I’ve spent in a long, long time. The festival as a whole was extremely well-organised, with a small enough number of attendees to ensure comfort, personal space and decent facilities at all times, moderate crowds for even the most popular acts, manageable queues for food/toilets and, best of all, a friendly, relaxed atmosphere that equalled good fun and mutual respect for audience and performers alike.

Yeah, there were loads of kids and weekending families all over the place, but in a way this worked to the festival’s advantage, encouraging the young folks in attendance (and we’re mainly talking mild-mannered 20-somethings such as myself rather than rowdy teenagers) to behave nicely, not get too wasted or make a mess etc., which is fine by me.

The festival site itself is beautiful; genuinely remote from any human habitation and encompassing early morning vistas of mist-shrouded farmland, odd pagodas and architectural follies left over from the stately home era dotted around the place and a whole maze of secluded forest groves, perfect for stumbling through at any hour of the day or night in search of privacy, secret get-togethers and acoustic hoe-downs.

The festival is run without corporate sponsorship, and all food and merch outlets on site are small-scale enterprises of an organic/hippy variety, and generally of surprisingly good quality. Falafels, chi tea with brandy, stir fry, flapjacks, real ale etc. are all in steady supply, but if you’re looking for a snickers bar or a coke, well good luck. Nice!

The four music stages/tents are also set-up real nicely, generally running on schedule whilst allowing enough flexibility for last minute extra sets, jam-fests etc., and the organisers have made special effort to balance out the often dreary, family-friendly stuff on the main stage with a winning array of genuinely great performers and rocking bands filling out the rest of the line-up, allowing punters to randomly wander from one kick ass performance to another almost all day long. Sound quality on all stages it should be noted was EXCELLENT – hands down the best I’ve ever heard at a festival.

Even the weather was great – a brief spot of rain on the Friday, followed by the fading summer’s last day or two of blazing sunshine.

But enough blather. In short: End Of The Road was ACE.

The only major downer of the weekend was the thoroughly FUBAR coach service from Salisbury Station, which saw us arriving on site an hour behind schedule, and stranded in a muddy barn for two and a half hours after our planned time of departure on the Monday. I’m sure they’ll manage to sort things out a bit better for next year and no hard feelings, but still, word to the wise: take a car.

So this is the first of what will be three posts on End Of The Road I’m going to publish this week, and I’ll throw in some Mp3s of some particularly great songs that were performed during the weekend too. By which I mean previously recorded versions obviously, not bootlegs from the festival or anything. (Just thought I’d make that clear.) I also managed to take a few photos on a little disposable Kodak I borrowed, and I'll share some of those with you too.

End Of The Road : FRIDAY

Howe Gelb has been charged with selecting the acts playing the Big Top Stage (weird memories of childhood circus trips..) on Friday evening, and the first thing we catch after getting our own tent sorted out and having a nose around is John Doe. Yes THE John Doe, formerly of X.

John Doe

These days John is rocking a persuasive take on country singer-songwriter tradition, one which is crucially still informed by the immediacy of punk rock. Telling big-screen tales of junkies, losers, rockers and the like, his songs are straight-up, open-hearted blasters knocked out with an intensity that occasionally recalls the Mountain Goats, particularly when he gives the c’n’w the heave-ho and switches to electric guitar, the froth of some chugging overdrive instantly rendering things a good 50% gnarlier. The current line-up of Giant Sand mosey on to accompany John toward the end of his set, and holy moly, do they ever rock it, stretching the songs out into thunderously righteous triple-guitar Crazy Horse jams of the kind old dudes do best. High fives all round! What a great way to start the festival! It’s this performance that seals the deal re: my decision to catch Giant Sand instead of Yo La Tengo in tonight’s headline slot clash.

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do when it comes to Scout Niblett. The first time I laid eyes on her was as a strange, shy girl coaxed on stage to sing a song by Herman Dune back in, ooh, 2002 I guess..? I subsequently caught her doing a few support slots on her own and found her performances utterly intolerable – grim, masochistic and self-indulgent in the extreme. Whilst I’ve subsequently had my attention focussed elsewhere though, Scout has gone on to become an underground heroine of sorts, picking up the enthusiastic support of just about every music writer/fan I respect, so…. maybe I could have been missing something? Let’s find out…

Well Scout is certainly a hell of a lot more confident and focused on stage these days, and the hulls of her deceptively simple, introspective songs are armoured with the spikes and barnacles of heavy usage picked up via touring, recording and surviving the criticism and indifference of dullards such as myself, and her performance carries the kind of spell-binding quality usually reserved for the card-carrying ‘greats’ of modern music. Distinctive enough to sidestep the more obvious Cat Power and PJ Harvey comparisons, her onstage presence recalls nothing so much as a female Kurt Cobain. Take that as you will, I doubt she could give a damn. The music she makes is non-negotiable self-expression, as close to the ground as the hearty fare the hippies are cooking up for tea outside. Seems I was indeed missing something. Oh, and I know it was posted on every blog going months ago, but I’m a bit behind, so: that song about the Dinosaur Egg = genius. (It sounded a lot more urgent that the version I’m about to post here, for the record.)

Mp3 > Scout Niblett – Dinosaur Egg (live)

After Ms Niblett’s reiteration of the ‘less is more’ principle, Robyn Hitchcock’s performance, accompanied by John Paul Jones on bass and mandolin, adds up to less than the sum of it’s parts. I mean, if I tell you that one of Britain’s great eccentric song-writers was up there banging through selections from his back catalogue, with the guy from Led Zeppelin rocking out on a stupidly over-sized acoustic bass, that there’s a woman playing the saw, and Howe Gelb over in the corner playing piano with his feet…. sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Alas, not so.

Hitchcock seems on poor form, his playing mechanical and his selection of material focussing on tunes that, for all of their intriguing post-Syd lyrical digressions, never really blossom into great songs. JPJ plays along competently enough, but it doesn’t seem as if the pair have practiced much in advance, and he’s too busy trying to stay in key to really live up to the expectations of his rock legend status, whilst Hitchcock’s between song banter seems pre-scripted, lacking any of his characteristic wit or spontaneity. It’s not a bad performance by any means, and there are some enjoyable moments where things gel quite nicely, but let’s just say that when my friend leans across to tell me “I think this guy’s a bit of a git”, well, I know Robyn Hitchcock isn’t a git, and maybe you know it too, but this particular appearance offers little evidence to support such a conclusion.

Robyn Hitchcock & John Paul Jones

Sadly, Giant Sand’s headlining jam-fest fares little better. After knocking out great, brooding takes on his trademark ‘Shiver’ and a couple of other ‘Sand classics, Howe Gelb deems it time to launch his own low-budget version of The Last Waltz and starts dragging guests on stage with the fervour of Moses leading the Israelites across the desert. Only with considerably less success. Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner shuffles around at the back of the stage for most of the set, dying on his arse with absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to be doing, and no use looking to Howe for guidance, as he looks like he doesn’t have much more of a clue. A young Arizona singing lady is wheeled out like a homecoming prom queen for a so-so stumble through a few lugubrious numbers before the actually-quite-great Jesse Sykes and her guitarist reluctantly come on to take part in the most shamefully shamble-assed take on The Flying Burrito Brothers’ immortal ‘Sin City’ ever attempted. “Well, that was better than the last time we did it!” says Howe… yeah dude, who knows, maybe the next time you inflict it on a paying crowd you’ll actually find the right chords and pay cursory attention to the melody. I mean, Christ, it’s a three chord Gram Parsons tune, and you’re a revered alt-country luminary - sort it out! But no time to dwell on such matters, because here comes Robyn Hitchcock again – oh my god, he’s singing “Kung Fu Fighting”! It should be noted that the rhythm section and guitarist of the resurrected Giant Sand are obviously fine musicians, and it is largely thanks to their efforts that this shit is kept somewhere in the region of ‘together’, despite their leader’s clowning around. Gelb announces it’s time to wrap things up, promising us a monster finale, as the band launch into a swinging “Who Do You Love” groove. Alright! Howe responds by spending a few minutes mucking about with his guitar cables, before reciting the lyrics to “Ring Of Fire” for no apparent reason. Then he starts singing “Hey Jude”, of all fucking things, and calls proceedings to a close.

It must be the nightmare of all musicians embarking on this kind of “hey let’s do the show right here!” style hoedown that the ‘all-the-one’ spirit and unexpected inspiration you’re expecting to manifest simply… won’t be there. I saw Howe Gelb play an absolutely stunning show a couple of years ago, alone with a piano, so I know he’s more than capable of pulling great music out of thin air, and you’d hope a damp squib of a show like tonight’s would provide a lesson to him: turning up on stage without the faintest idea what you’re going to do isn’t ALWAYS such a great idea. He’ll probably just keep right on doing it though, contrary bastard that he is.

Mp3 > Giant Sand – Shiver

Labels: End Of The Road, festivals, live reviews