End Of The Road Festival
Larmer Tree Gardens, Salisbury

MUSOS and Wire magazine readers will be hard pressed to find a music festival so fittingly aligned to their tastes than End Of The Road.

Since founder and self-confessed music obsessive Simon Taffe sold his house to launch the festival in 2006, it has grown a sizeable reputation for its eclecticism and for staging some of the more cutting edge acts of indie, folk, art rock and electronica.

Punters have barely arrived before Laetitia Sadier, French singer and founding member of avant-popsters Stereolab, takes to the main Woods stage — at the foot of a glorious vista of rolling hills and fields of haystacks — to showcase some choice cuts from her solo career, including latest album Rooting For Love.

She’s quickly followed by another innovator in their field; the quirky folk of Richard Dawson, who sings/warbles about football, museums, polytunnels and medieval times.

Acts as varied and acclaimed as alt-indie band Yo La Tengo, electronic producer Floating Points, political punk-rockers Idles, rapper Billy Woods, electro-pop duo Jockstrap, soul artist Curtis Harding, riot grrrls Sleater-Kinney and Ghanaian Frafra gospel singer Florence Adooni are enough to tempt most aficionados to rush among the stages without pause for breath.

Techno duo Paranoid London and Catalan DJ John Talabot bring plenty of party atmosphere to the Big Top stage, which also heard New York art rockers Water From Your Eyes perform from their lauded Everyone’s Crushed album, including the catchy punk ditty True Love and the emotively charged 14; a stripped-back song of loss and change amid pizzicato strings.

The enchanting Larmer Tree Gardens site has plenty to explore. From ornate follies and Victorian buildings, including its Roman Temple and Nepalese Room, to pristine gardens with roaming peacocks, and woods (renamed for the festival as Effing Forest) where much serendipity can be found.

Amidst it is a tiny piano stage where indie legends Gruff Rhys, the former frontman of Super Furry Animals, and multi-instrumentalist Bill Ryder-Jones perform a “hidden” set. The pair also each play separate solo sets at the magical Garden stage, where moments of blissful tranquility are evoked across the weekend in the form of Japanese guitarist Ichiko Aoba and harpist Mary Lattimore.

But it’s the esteemed Irish folk drone act Lankum who are among the most memorable. Traditionals like The Wild Rover and Rocky Road To Dublin are sandwiched among Go Dig My Grave and The Turn, from latest album False Lankum, which build to mesmeric dark and discordant cacophonies.

Singer Ian Lynch sparks a wave of “Free Palestine” chants after he challenges apathy in the face of Israel’s genocide, asking the crowd how they will respond when in years to come they’re asked: “What did you do during the Palestinian genocide?”

Jazz musician, saxophonist, spoken-word poet and activist Alabaster DePlume also prompts a similar uproar in support of Palestine after mentioning a friend in the West Bank.

On the final day, stand-up comedians Thanyia Moore, Stewart Lee and Josie Long provide some political comic relief on the Talking Heads stage. The latter introduces herself as a socialist, explaining that she would be a communist but it involves too much reading. Long is also quick to criticise PM Sir Keir Starmer, who she says is so far to the right of the party he can only be attacked from the left.

Lee does a rendition of his well-known immigration gag, as relevant as ever given the recent wave of far-right rioting.

Since the pandemic, festivals have been closing or cancelling by the dozen due to soaring costs. Let’s hope End Of The Road’s journey continues.

For more information see: endoftheroadfestival.com.