The Beat kick off Endorse-It in style

As we drive onto the farm track that leads down to the festival we're slightly disorientated, arriving at most festivals you can see the site, but here in the rolling chalk downs of Cranborne Chase, which has some gorgeous views from the plateau, we can only see a line of cars, no tents or flags.

Eventually we turn in through a cut in the hedge, and suddenly we can see below us the stripey tents, the live in vehicles and the car park, which is further from the campsite than previous years, but still manageable as this festival is nice and small anyway.

Our friends had arrived early, and so had many others in the meantime, so there was unsurprisingly no space left near them, we elected to camp nearer the gate, family camping was a long way off, and the ground was green, the flags fluttered in the warm breeze and we had the tent up in no time.

Entering the site meant the usual display of wristbands, but now entering near the campsite shop, there was a new addition, two new security people, with a table, looking for contraband I reckoned, they never stopped anyone I knew although a young lad later approached me asking for some weed to spare, because he said this purple shirted pair had relieved him of his weekend supply, Endorse It has a zero drugs tolerance this year.



Once in the site, the bars beckoned, I was drawn immediately to the giant punk skulls a-top the new 'Rock The Kasbar' tent, two real ales, a scrumpy, sensible cider, and lager stuff were on offer. I plumped for the reasonably priced darker ale 'Fortyniner' and stuck to that most of the weekend.

Next door music flowed from the tented DD Stage, but with no programme I had no idea who it was, but it had that vitality of ska and punk. Moving around the donut shaped arena, it was clear some things had been moved about this year, all good, but it was still safe and secure, and difficult to get lost. The kids area was better sited, near the arena, and there seemed to be more stalls, food options, and less empty space, or the wind tunnels of last year, the Wreckon Bandstand was cool with its clambering black flag waving metal beasts.

I made my way around to the bar by the main stage, passing the Wildcat Stage, which was yet to start up for the day, and found the tables in front of the stripey bar tent full of friends old and new. As the music started up I made some new friends, everyone was friendly, the buggies parked in little circles like wagons for the night, kids ran about, and there appeared to be more people about.

In fact it seemed the crowd was slightly different this year, there were a lot of Dorset folk as usual, and a lot youths with cider flagons, reminds me of my teenage years, good to see kids still out and about in this day and age, there were your usual ageing punks, and the dreadlock/mohawk count was still high, but there were also more middle of the road festival people, ones that had added EiiD to their list of two or three festivals a year, some that I spoke to said they'd picked this festie over Glastonbury this year and another said he'd chosen it as his mates had said it was small and uncrowded, and he didn't like crowds.

We continued to talk, introducing new people, and it seemed a lot were new to the festival this year, I'm guessing those more familiar with it were elsewhere, perhaps still putting up tents, or sampling the tunes of Big Red Ass, Chicken Shed Zeppelin, and Steranko on other stages.

Where we were we had SixNationState, The Talks, and the impressive groove of Imperial Leisure to keep us skankin' about. One of the delights of Endorse It is it's anti indie-landfill music policy we only get real tunes all weekend, none of this turgid NME driven stuff, this is old school flavoured tunes, real music with banjos and brass.



Talking of which up next was Pronghorn, who where a bit subdued sounding from we were stood, we couldn't hear too well, it seemed quieter, but a trip to the bar, revealed they were blasting it through the speakers in there, and it was much louder on that side of the field, and we were soon singing along. Mind you once the infectious fiddle hit, it sounded even better in the dancin' throng drawn to the front.

The Beat, were a treat, my god they took the place by the scruff of the neck and shook us 'til we danced like loons and finished the night's entertainment on the main stage on a high, it would seem due to the council's licensing policy that late night main stage action at Endorse It is no more.



But there was plenty to do elsewhere, late night music in the bar, more tunes in the Wig On Casino, Silent Disco action, but with a big deposit on the headphones, so we gave that a miss, the Kasbar was busy, but we settled at the Tofu Love Frogs, which I enjoyed, although they kept apologising about how they sounded. We could have carried on partying into the morning at one of the late night tents, however a warm late night under a gazebo in the campsite beckoned, with randoms wandering passed in various states of amusing disrepair, and the occasionally angsty mobile home user, who had to use the well lit nearby toilets as they didn't have any.

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