Meades93

Oddly the visualisers on Spotify for the new Wilco single is Venn diagrams

The only thing that gives me hope for Boygenius is that EOTR might hold a special place for them. Lucy said last year it was her favourite festival and in 2018, when Lucy did a late night secret set she was joined by Julien, it was the first time that any Boygenius material was performed live. So for them it might be a sentimental full circle thing. Far-fetched? Probably, but not impossible.

From a January email from Jamie T

Whilst I agree that beginning of September is technically summer, when the Jamie T supports were announced IDLES were being billed as their only uk show this year. That’s now changed to only summer show, so definitely some wiggle room on that exclusivity.

Any relevance to the Venn diagram on the poster? Just feels a little bit out of place. Could just be a design flourish but doesn’t seem to fit in. Maybe I’m reaching…

Saw Lime Garden support Porridge Radio at Beat Connection on Friday night, and was really impressed. Definitely going on the must see list for EOTR, and we’ll worth checking out.

Just been listening to the playlist and Infinity Knives The Badger comes on. Not only quite a good track, but starts with the line “I’mma kill my landlord…” Please let the inclusion of this track be reference to the landlord incident last year 😂

Ah fair enough. I was also wondering if any names would have been held back due to Wide Awake. It’s an early festival so would still leave EOTR plenty of time to sell tickets. I know last year that a few EOTR records bands played it, but there’s not too much crossover at the moment in terms of acts.

Still have my fingers crossed for Bdrmm, saw them last year in Guildford and thought they were great and would go down well. See that they are playing Long Division in July and a smattering of other dates. Hopefully they make an appearance on the second announcement.

As you say, it’s a cost of living crisis. Emily Eavis recently said that to put on the same show at Glastonbury as previous years it would mean a £100 increase in tickets. They’ve had to up tickets by about £55 as the minimum they could do. £200 is a lot, but I think it’s still worth it for the experience. When looking at past years line ups, a lot of those acts are so much bigger now then when they headlined EOTR. In that Guardian article it pretty much says that Simon aims for bands who can sell out Brixton when looking at headliners. If you look at having headliners at an average ticket price of £40, then just seeing those four headliners is £160 worth of value. I’d also argue that what we have this year in terms of headliners is stronger than 2019, 2020 (initial announcement), and 2021. The state of the festival industry is also much harder for independent festivals like EOTR. You can hypothetically go to a festival like Truck or Victorious and get better “value”, but as part of Superstruct they do big multi festival deals for acts. The same with live nation and festival republic. This to me just means that most festival line ups these days are copy and pasted. It all becomes so generic. It probably doesn’t help that Goldenvoice have moved All Points East to August. They can afford to pay more money, and will get exclusivity agreements. I don’t really want to dwell on the value aspect too much more. I think it’s value for money. The cost of living crisis does mean that people will be more frugal with their festival choices. It also means that independent festivals are going to struggle the most. I went in 2019, and missed 2021 due to a newborn, but I remember the feeling of going last year, and thinking about how we almost lost that kind of experience during the lockdown. It’s amazing that festivals like EOTR are still going. It seems like there are line up complaints for almost every festival this year. It might just be an off year for some. It’s fine to be disappointed about the line up, everyone’s got a personal preference, but no one has been swindled out of a festival ticket here.

Value for money is a funny one, as you can easily tot up the amount of acts you can see in a day, and how much they would cost to see individually, and you will probably find that it is very good value for money. Obviously, you could argue that you wouldn’t actually pay to see some of those acts and so personally it isn’t good value for money, and that’s fair enough, but would be a personal view. In terms of value for money against other festivals, I don’t think EOTR has ever been that great value compared to other festivals. It’s not that much cheaper than Latitude, and Latitude always has much bigger acts. It’s a competitively priced small festival, which generally knows the audience it’s catering too very well. A lot of that audience willing to pay for this particular festival experience over the value of the line ups.

I can see where some people are coming from in terms of cost of acts, but to say the Greenman Line up is miles better is all about personal opinion. Personally, I saw Spiritualized in 2019 at EOTR so I’m happier with Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I think First Aid Kit are a bit boring, so I’m happier with Future Islands, although I understand the claim that FAK are probably a bigger act. Wilco are like an EOTR houseband so can see why people are a little jealous that greenman got Devo, and I think headliner wise that is a real get for them. We’ve also got King Gizzard and the lizard wizard which although divisive are clearly big enough to headline. In terms of mid acts, we’ve also got Angel Olsen who was down to headline the festival outright a couple of years ago, Ezra Furman (again maybe familiarity has bred contempt but a great booking.) Greentea Peng, Yeule, Biig Pig, all good bookings showcasing the diversity at this festival. I was hoping as much as anyone that EOTR would get Walkmen, so that’s a bit gutting, and I would also take slowdive, The Delgados and Young Father. I think it’s always dangerous to compare with past line ups. My initial reaction to EOTR line ups is always the same. I will love or really like one or two of the headliners. I will have heard of the the other two and garden stage headliners and going gives me an excuse to dive into their work. I will be worried about how I’m going to spend my day as I know little of the undercard, but by the time the festival comes around I will have found some of my new favourite acts. My first year was 2019 and this happened with BCNR, Georgia, Stella Donnelly, Ohtis, and Fontaines DC. When it comes to the next years announcement I will be hoping for these acts to return and will inevitably be jealous when they get announced for Greenman. EOTR will then release their line up and the process will start again. I trust EOTR and having listened to the playlist this year I’m more than happy. Do I think that the festival is trying to save money? Sure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. EOTR is sold on a weekend only basis and it really is about the whole experience of the weekend. Last year must have been a tough year for them, still rolling over tickets from 2020, and having budgeted and sold out of tickets in February for a show in September, I doubt they could have accurately budgeted for the steep rise in cost of everything in that time. Last year the big complaints were that people felt corners had been cut in terms of staffing and facilities. If they’ve saved a little bit of money on the line up in order to make sure that it’s the best EOTR experience possible, than I’m happy with that, as it really is one of the best festivals in the uk. The fact that as an independent festival in an increasingly crowded and corporate festival landscape they are able to pull this off is amazing in itself. No one has been conned out of a ticket, the first year I went I waited for the line up before purchasing my ticket, now I buy early bird as I know I will have a great time no matter the line up.

Some names have been added to Victorious Festival which would be a good fit for EOTR, on the weekend before but obviously the festivals aren’t too far apart geographically so might rule them out. Shame, Katy J Pearson, Billie Nomates, Amyl and the sniffers, The Divine Comedy and Belle and Sebastian would all be great!

I really like the sound of Yot Club, realised I’d heard them on Radio 6 the other day, so after a more in depth listen yesterday they’ve become a must see for me. They’ve also got a better Spotify listener count than all of the headliners which baffles me as I’ve only just heard of them.

The thing that strikes the most is how uninspired the line up is. I mean, it’s not bad in terms of acts being too small to headline. Billie, The Killers and Capaldi are all big enough. Imagine Dragons have the numbers, although maybe not as popular here as they are in the states. Foals have co-headlined before and Fender definitely deserves a shot. It’s just there’s nothing special there. I saw The Killers last year on their extensive uk stadium tour with Sam Fender as support and went to Latitude which had both Foals and Lewis Capaldi (saw Foals who were great and skipped Capaldi for Phoebe Bridgers.) Which just goes to say that these are all acts you could have seen elsewhere. Last year RandL had the only Arctic Monkeys show of the year after a lengthy absence, and Rage would have been their first UK show in ages. Massive coups for the festival. This along with the lack of Rap and heavier headliners really takes the excitement out of it. I know people saw that the demographic has changed and that the fest doesn’t cater for heavier music anymore but last year they were supposed to have Rage and BMTH, the year before they had Biffy, the year before that they had Foo’s. This year just feels so middle of the road.