The 9 best things we saw at End Of The Road

Photo: Richard Gray

A lot of bands performing at this year’s End Of The Road tell the crowd, “This is our favourite festival in the world.” Nothing particularly new there, they probably had the festival name and location taped to the back of their amp… but the difference here is that they seem to genuinely mean it.

Throughout the weekend, we walk past headliners Wild Beasts heading over to the garden stage with ciders in hand, bump into Arc Iris on our way to Showeroke (don’t ask), and are distracted from Jenny Lewis’s brilliant afternoon set by the sight of St. Vincent cheering her on. This is a festival that captures the imagination of anyone, be they punters or performers, who visits its beautiful surroundings. Here are the 9 best things we saw.

1. tUnE-yArDs
Merill Garbus alone is basically a one-woman multi-instrumental band, but, just to make sure she really sticks in your memory, she’s got a full band too. Using loop pedals to both harmonise with her own voice, and create world-music style drum beats (which the crowd try and fail to clap along to), tUnE-yArDs are a band whose ingenuity can only truly be appreciated live. When they first arrived on stage, the microphone wasn’t actually turned on - but the sheer power of Garbus’s vocals ensured even those sun-bathing half-asleep at the back of the field heard her cry out, “What’s the point in living if I’ll never be a gangsta?”

2. The Flaming Lips
No band in the history of music goes for the ‘more is more’ approach with greater enthusiasm than The Flaming Lips. Arriving on stage with a Robin Thicke style balloon arrangement spelling out “FUCK YEAH END OF THE ROAD”, with Wayne Coyne dressed in a frankly disturbing muscle suit and surrounded by hanging tassles which are lit up with rainbow colours, The Flaming Lips are neither shy nor retiring. Frankly, the band’s penchant for onstage theatrics occasionally crossed over into gimmicky – it was great when Coyne rolled out into the crowd in a huge plastic bubble, but it would have been even greater if the music accompanying his heroic dash had been something more than just a few guitar riff-fillers. Nonetheless, ‘Do You Realize’ was a truly memorable moment, and when they got the balance right between music and madness, they nailed it.

3. Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Sadly, UMO lost the more tepid portion of their crowd early on due to mildly excessive instrumental solos, which tended to distract from the sheer joy of their psychedelic rock. Those who stayed beyond the first few songs however, were richly rewarded.

4. Perfume Genius
If the organisers of End Of The Road are reading this, and are considering booking Perfume Genius again, please, we beg of you, don’t give him the outdoor afternoon slot. The sheer, haunting beauty of tracks such as ‘Mr Petersen’ came dangerously close to being ruined by the cheerful chatting of families having picnics. Damn their happiness. This may accidentally sound like a slight against his looks, but Perfume Genius belongs in a dark tent.

5. The lack of phones
Noticeably absent in EOTR crowds is the usually ubiquitous sea of smart phones blocking your view. Admittedly, this is partly down to the fact that Larmer Tree Gardens is a black hole for phone signal (If you lose your friends, your best bet is to communicate with them via the actual postmen and women that cycle around the grounds), but it’s also because the crowd realise that, even with such visually overwhelming acts as the Flaming Lips, it’s really better just to watch.

6. St. Vincent
Actually, St. Vincent’s wasn’t the best live set we saw at End Of The Road, it was one of the best live sets we’ve ever seen. It is only in a live setting that the sheer fearless, electric eclecticism of St. Vincent’s music suddenly comes together to make complete sense. Her genuinely eccentric stage persona (at one point she rolled herself languidly down a flight of stairs as if her limbs had given up on her) never once distracted from the music. The songs sounded as scuzzily polished as on record, and the set traversed from this year’s self-titled album all the way back to her Arrested Development-referencing debut Marry Me. Yes, ok, we will.

7. The food
A picture paints a thousand words, so we won’t bother explaining what was great about the food – except to say that the plate pictured below was in fact not the best meal we bought over the weekend.

8. Jenny Lewis
It’s been six years since Jenny Lewis’ last album, but with the release of The Voyager this year, and the success of the ‘Just One Of The Guys’ video, she’s won herself a whole new fanbase. It’s an album which lends itself perfectly to the ears of a happily tipsy festival crowd, and Lewis’s EOTR set is an infectious sing-a-long with musical talent to boot. It’s the more downbeat numbers which truly stood out though – Lewis’s former band Rilo Kiley’s ‘A Better Son/Daughter’ provided an intensely poignant respite from the dancing, and nothing showcased Lewis’s beautiful, soaring vocals better than ‘Acid Tongue’, from the 2008 album of the same name.

9. Peggy Sue
“Sorry we’re late,” Peggy Sue told the crowd 45 minutes after they were due to be on stage. “We’re often late, but this time it wasn’t our fault.” Whatever the reasons, their set, thankfully, was worth the wait. The band struck the right balance between showcasing their soulful new record and treating the crowd to old favourites such as their wonderful, vocally-looped ‘Hit The Road Jack’ cover. “We’re really excited because St. Vincent’s playing on this stage later on,” they beam to the crowd. Actually, she played on a different stage, but we completely understand their slightly misplaced enthusiasm.

Below: The beautiful sights + people of End Of The Road 2014 in photos