End of the Road Festival, 2008

So, as expected, End Of The Road at the weekend was all manner of awesome. So many of my favourite bands and artists played in such quick succession that by the end I was getting almost blasé about it. From my own personal POV, this was almost certainly the best British festival line-up of my era. I mean, look at it;

Equally predictable in its own strange way is the fact that despite all this, I didn’t find it quite such a revelatory / enjoyable experience of last year’s fest. Last year you see, I didn’t really have high hopes for the festival experience and was prepared to just drift around and see what happened, result being that much of it was rather like a relaxed weekend in the countryside where unexpectedly amazing musicians kept pitching up and singing a bunch of songs for me, resulting in a joyous time. This year, there was obviously a lot more forward planning involved, and a lot more expectation of MIGHTY FUN. The festival seemed bigger, more crowded (though not to an unpleasant degree), there were a lot more people I knew going, a lot more social shenanigans, a lot more “I must be in THIS place at THIS time to see THIS band” kinda manoeuvring. Also, my uncomfortable tent/sleeping bag arrangements and manly disregard for such niceties as a camping mat and warm clothing sadly rendered sleep near impossible throughout the festival, encouraging me to drink more and stay up later than last year, all of which contributed to me getting a bit flustered and exhausted at times, especially given the performances from various bands whose music, emotionally-speaking, tends to hit me like a ton of bricks.

But that’s nothing new – in retrospect, I always seem to end up feeling a bit survivalist at festivals, even nice comfortable ones where I have a bed. Over-stimulation, that’s what it is. 95% of the festival was still totally unspoiled enjoyment.

I’m not gonna do a big band-by-band write-up of everything I saw, partly because I saw so much bloody stuff that that would be a massive undertaking, and partially because for the most part I was watching bands with whom I’m already familiar, and whom I’ve (hopefully) oft mentioned on this blog before, so I don’t want to repeat myself.

Unlike last year, I didn’t really make many ‘new discoveries’, but it was wonderful to see all the acts I was discovering/championing on the festival’s smaller stages last year moving up to better slots and bigger audiences this time around - Congregation opening the big top tent, David Thomas Broughton headlining one of the other tents to a massive crowd. The Wave Pictures played in blazing sunshine on the main stage on the Sunday afternoon – almost exactly the same spot/situation as Herman Dune last year – and totally OWNED the place, not that I was in any doubt re: their ability to do so. Liz Green also played one off the best sets of the weekend to rapturous response in the big top tent. She’s so much more comfortable and relaxed on stage than a year ago, it’s a great thing to see, and, now fleshed out by some well-balanced accompaniment from a small band, her music seems more purely beautiful than ever – simple, dark, honest, upfront songs about stuff that happens to people in their lives, played with an unfettered emotion that stops the breath in my throat.

In a welcome change of pace, and volume, it was great too to see Dead Meadow putting in an appearance in one of the smaller tents late on Friday evening, playing one of the best sets I’ve seen them do in years. I mean, to a – ha! - outsider it must have seemed pretty much interchangeable with any of their other sets - they’re not exactly a band that goes in for surprises - and I’m well aware by now that the vast majority of my learned fellows are sadly blind to the abundant charms of The ‘Meadow’s timeless approach to things, but they can all go whistle down a mineshaft, cos on this occasion the band, and by extension myself, were IN THE ZONE, if you will, and, as they slip inside the ‘Sleepy Silver Door’ for the millionth time, the Dead Meadow Zone is one of my all time favourite places to be. You wouldn’t fucking believe how comfortable the seats are in there, or the things they do with the lighting.

Of the main stage stuff, A Hawk And A Hacksaw and The Dirty Three both kicked it pretty thoroughly on the Friday night too, although Low’s set on the Saturday night was actually quite upsetting. I’m not gonna talk about it here, because I’m sick of retelling the same story, but if you’re a fan of the band, or an avid music media/blog follower, you’ll likely have heard the gory details by now. Aside from all that though, let it be said for the record that they played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen/heard from them. That they were followed directly by Mercury Rev’s current pageant of simpering lunacy seemed… unfortunate scheduling. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big ‘Rev fan, I even dig ‘All Is Dream’, but when the band is reduced to Jonathan prancing like a tit amid dry ice and Grasshopper throwing shapes and making the occasional comedy skreeeee noise over a laptop booming out their Disney OST backing tracks, what can you do but laugh? Their bombast is writ so large it’s positively surreal, but any true feeling their songs might once have carried seems lost to the ravages of time.

Most of the best stuff for me though took place in the dark realm of the big tent, and I guess it almost goes without saying that Pete & The Pirates kicked ass, that Let’s Wrestle were fantastically enjoyable - geeky good fun, like the kind of band I’d always assumed I’d probably be in. Billy Childish and the MBEs went down a storm too, of course. Jeffrey Lewis played one of the most chaotic and enjoyable sets I’ve seen him do in recent years too, despite a few guitar malfunctions. He started off with a couple of really wonderful new solo songs, went through a few raucous psych/punk numbers with the band, Jack sang a fantastic Jeff-less song about attending Neil Young’s imaginary funeral. With near sickening inevitability, David Tattersall came on to play ukulele on a couple of selections from the Crass covers album, and, somewhat more surprisingly, John Darnielle made an appearance too, bounding on grinning like the easter bunny to sing the chorus do “Do They Owe Us A Living?”, briefly creating a ‘Last Waltz’-like personal best for the number of my favourite songwriters I’ve seen on stage at one time.

One of the best things about the festival actually was the unscheduled after-hours shenanigans in the couple of smaller music tents. It’s all a bit hazy, bit it seems like I spent several whole hours watching fresh-faced classic rock revival troupe The Young Republic soldier through sets of Dylan and Chuck Berry covers. Whilst their original material is – what’s a nice way of putting it? – only intermittently inspired, they’re certainly an accomplished and joyous bunch, much taken with the idea of reconstructing a careful approximation of that hallowed Big Pink / Basement Tapes vibe, with much good-natured, ego-free chooglin’ thrown in for good measure. And above all, they’re aware that there is much to said for the simple joys of some well-lubricated musicians belting out the singalong-ready goods to a well-lubricated audience by the light of a full moon in the early hours. Good times, as they say, pretty much defined.

Speaking of which, perhaps the best moment of the whole festival goes as follows; after midnight on the Saturday, and we’re all a bit flagging energy-wise (well, I am anyway), looking for something fun to keep us going… so we’re crammed into this packed tent where apparently some kinda (clearly not very) secret musical happening is going to be a-transpiring. So, hey, apparently it’s some guys from British Sea Power and some of their pals and, with no disrespect intended to them as a band, this does not really fill me with faith in imminent good times… BUT, they take the stage, and they say, hello, we’re going to be playing a set of Jonathan Richman covers. And they do!

You know that feeling, when you’re in a situation of some kind – in this case, an unknown musical unit setting up to play - and you think ‘who knows, maybe something fun will happen here – prob’ly not, but you never know’, and then the universe knocks you flat by presenting you with something so, so, so, so, so much more fun than you could possibly have expected? Like, the absolute PERFECT thing you want to happen at that moment? – well it was a bit like that. They mostly did stuff of the first couple of post-Modern Lovers solo records – ‘New England’ and ‘Ice Cream Man’ and ‘Government Center’ and ‘The New Teller’ and ‘Important In Your Life’ and ‘Abominable Snowman In the Market’ and ‘Martian Martians’, as well as ‘Cornerstore’ and ‘The Girl Stands Up To Me Now’ from later in the great man’s career, and probably a bunch of others, I forget. ‘I’m A Little Airplane’ went down a storm too – I mean, it’s never really been a favourite of mine on record, but the appeal of getting drunk and yelling along at the top of your voice to a song that mostly goes “WANGITY-WANG!, WANGITY-WANG!” is never to be underestimated. And, moving from the ridiculous back to the sublime as only Jonathan can, they did ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’, absolutely note/word perfect to the version on ‘Modern Lovers Live’! I could have wept. I think I probably did. I think I might weep again now, just writing about it.

Go and do whatever you do, British Sea Power guys – even if you release twenty six albums of fascist speeches and reversed dog barks, I’ll love you forever for pulling this one out of the hat.

The other highlight was, of course, the privilege (and it really is a privilege for us in the UK) of getting to see The Mountain Goats on two consecutive evenings – first at the festival, then at their London show the following day. Strangely perhaps, the crowd for their festival slot seemed to be a lot more psyched (read: fanatical) about things than at their headline date, but who knows. They were both great sets, obviously. The new three-piece Mountain Goats with Jon Auger on full-time drums seems like a far more straight-up ‘rock band’ kinda proposition than when there was just the two of them, with a pretty fixed night-to-night setlist and little room for digressions. So at EOTR they gave us all the ‘hits’ from the 4AD albums in short order, no older songs or obscurities whatsoever. Which, seeing as how those albums comprise the best body of original song-writing of the century thus far, is clearly TOTALLY GOOD, however much a little bit of me might be silently yelling for ‘Going To Cleveland’ or ‘Going To Bristol’ or ‘Alpha Sun Hat’ or ‘Downtown Seoul’ or whatever else. Hearing a hushed take on ‘Have To Explode’ on both nights is beautiful, and maybe the most poignant moment for me was getting to hear ‘Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod’ during the EOTR set – hammerblow obvious though it may be, I’ve still got no words for that song. John Darnielle seemed to get pretty worked up on both nights playing Heretic Pride’s brilliantly odd ‘Sept. 15th, 1983’, and it’s not until afterwards that it’s occurred to me – Sept. 14th/15th 2008 – 25th anniversary. Somehow, I was actually unaware up until this point that the song is actually about the death of reggae star Prince Far-I (perhaps making it a good companion piece to The Sunset Tree’s ‘Song For Dennis Brown’?), and I think maybe I actually preferred it as a completely mysterious tale of some kind of baffling secret society assassination, but no matter. Similarly, John’s spoken introduction to ‘How To Embrace A Swamp Creature’ really clicks the song into place – I’d previously been sorta quite struck by it, but unable to get an angle on it’s full meaning. Narrative context explained, the song means a hell of a lot more to me, and its live rendition scratches and pounds my heart just like it should have done the first time I heard it.

As an aside, it occurs to me that this rather oblique approach to context/meaning and heavy reliance on outside reference points has become a pretty constant motif in recent Mountain Goats material. I can’t help but wonder what, for instance, audience members unfamiliar with the song’s title, never mind the cultural significance of the ‘Halloween’ franchise, make of ‘Michael Myers Resplendent’, which opens both of these sets. Similarly, John treats us to a couple of new songs in Monday’s set, and I can well see ‘Sarcofago Live’ becoming a bit of a puzzler for those unfamiliar with the finer points of the early Brazilian metal scene. The other new tune rejoices under the name ‘Wizard Buys A Hat’, by the way.

But thankfully, the emotional half-nelson of The Mountain Goats best material transcends any such need for contextualisation or personal identification, and having drilled even the slightest of them deep into my mind via years’ worth of solitary, pavement-pounding walkman time, it was strange and unnerving and delightful to be there at End Of The Road, doggedly holding on to a good spot at the front as fellow devotees crowd around in advance, and watching apparently happy couples yelling along in tandem no ‘No Children’ and guys who probably had comfortable middle-class upbringings raising their fists and singing every word to ‘This Year’. Myself, I refute such accusations by closing my eyes and smiling and singing along to absolutely everything.

Actually, I seem to have ended up doing my whole ‘singing along’ thing quite a lot throughout this festival. I know it’s weird, and obnoxious, and almost unbearably nerdy… so I’ll end by apologising to anyone I irritated.

I was only going to do a quick festival summary, but it’s near 2,500 words already, so.. END!

If you’ve kept reading this far, you deserve some Mp3s. They are good ones, so treat them well.

The Mountain Goats – Sept. 15th 1983
The Mountain Goats – Going To Bristol
Liz Green – Hey Joe
Jonathan Richman – The Morning Of Our Lives

Labels: Dead Meadow, End Of The Road, festivals, Jeffrey Lewis, live reviews, Liz Green, The Mountain Goats