robith

Generally speaking I'd say it's the most relaxed crowdedness festival I've been at. Garden is all about angles - it gets mad crowd crust on the entrances from the path by the campfire bar. Come "through the gate" (in rugby parlance) or from the wood side and there's always loads of space. The tent, yeah, I've missed stuff there. You have to make a value call on what you want. I was all over Overmono so wee left Future Islands early (what a hard choice lol). I also think most of the time if you wait it out you'll get in. Grab a momo and come back 20 minutes in

Only thing on Green Man I'm proper envious of is the Max Cooper AV show, but that's cos I saw it already. Was proper mint though. Always love Explosions but seen them loads, Sofia K only a dj set. Most other stuff I've seen (usually at EOTR) or it's not my jam

Good stuff lower down, but EOTR has smashed them out of the park this year imo

We waited for the line up and now there are no large campervan tickets left - so as a permanent note, if anyone wants to sell I'll have it

He's bought his ticket. Of course I'll be avoiding the poser hypocrites IDLES - punk for Guardian readers who don't actually want to change anything

The bit about their fans was really stupid imo but otherwise I guess familiarity breeds contempt

Despite our indifference, I'd wager solid money on IDLES having the biggest crowd of the weekend for the headliners (unless the millions of TikTok Gen Z shoegaze fans show up for slowdive)

We decided to wait for the line up before booking this year. I'm pretty sure we're booking

I think IDLES make sense if they have one/two out there elevation headliners and want someone a bit normcore to keep the dads happy. Personally not my cup of tea (nothing against them musically, just think for an alleged "punk" band they don't speak out on much if it isn't in their commercial interests) but business wise I'd understand them as an "anchoring" leg even if it is a bit predicatable

Christ, how bad is your defence you need one of our dossers to improve matters???

Welcome aborad. You might need a slight downgrading of expectations however!

What the man above said. You have a set pitch but like we had a large and had a transporter and 2 tents with loads of spacer. You'll be grand with that set up

The cocktail stand by the main stage had frozen margs, so you could pour those in a beer, but would've been pretty expensive

Saw Weyes Blood last night. Absolutely fantastic and would be magic headlining the Garden, but think she might be toured out

Fantastic in London last night, but jeez, the crowd, unbearable. Rammed full of bald men screaming at each other about their jobs for the whole show. The low ceiling at the Troxy making it worse but creating a cacopony of chatter. Ended up stood at the very back on my own to try and get a semblance of peace. Always defend London crowds being born and bred, but appalling.

Would love Sofia Kourtesis imo

Also good - going back to the merch stand to find they had the shirt I wanted, last one left, in my size with £3 knocked off cos it had a bit of dirt on the collar (came off in the wash). What a touch

Realised I never actually did this The Good It's End of the Road. Its charm, especially with the weather is undiminished. The site deffo felt less tatty than 2022. Angel Olsen and Ezra two very special headline sets in the Garden which I'd never experienced before. The musical variety and diversity continues to increase without ever feeling incongruent - watching Overmono and Infinity Knives and they all felt like they were at the right place Beers- the campfire bar was much improved, staff in there were lightening fast and had a great selection of beers. No lageritas though! First time in a campervan, loved it. We arrived Friday so it was a little bit of a trek but would be hard pressed to do it normally now. Music wise, I loved Be Your Own Pet, The Mary Wallopers, Overmono, Elkka, Angel, Ezra, MADMADMAD (so early though), Geese, Alogte Oho and Biig Piig. Overmono in the tent, went off Absolutely out of our tree walking into the cinema stage and seeing without context the end of the Wild Bunch was possibly the highlight of the weekend. My mate meekly repeating "....but why did all those people have to die?" Asking anyone I saw in a Luton shirt if they knew what the West Ham score was, when I in fact already knew the score Food, especially the rendang stand. Never a queue, always slaps. As a fourth wave coffee snob, I love how much effort is extended on there being good coffee I actually rated the compost loos, even though if you got a cup of wood everyone knew you were going for a tip out A friendlier UK festival crowd you will not find, some annoying old people aside The Mid No two ways about it, I love what they're doing but the line up was underpowered. Saturday was a lot of wandering around for me. Luckily it's a nice place to do it, but I'm tempted to wait a bit for this year Sound on Woods was seriously underpowered imo Wet Leg sounded absolutely dreadful. Left after 3 songs and one of them was saying they were ill, so fair enough, but that doesn't explain why the guitar sounded so bad. Fair play to the fest though, that was a legit coup. Future Islands. Man alive that was dreary. Only endured it cos I didn't want to ruin Arooj for people who really wanted to see her due to the state we were in Couldn't get in to Panda Bear 😞 Potato stand selling me hash browns knowing their fryer was done and they weren't going to be able to serve food for like 30 minutes, frauds Wasps. Rat bastards of the insect world. 3 festivals running the tills have gone down. This was the worst yet. Honestly, it's just a cheque A Weird Aside There is a strange tension at EOTR that the crowd is so nice, it sometimes leaves the performance a bit underwhelming? I wouldn't want it to lose its charm, but at the same time I'd like it if the crowd...lost themselves a bit? Every now and then? Maybe why I loved Overmono so much, the one time people in the crowd were going for it The Future It remains a tremendous festival, I always have a great time, but I remain a bit concerned about its future re strength of line up and Green Man's continued acceleration, it's become the poor cousin. I love what they're doing with programming but the mid card was really underwhelming this year combined with uninspiring main stage headliners. I'll probably go again next year, but tempted to hold back until the line up to see the possibility of going on the cheap

People thinking Four Tet wouldn't go down well at EOTR weren't in the tent for Overmono. Absolutely went off

Love her and think she'd be great - worried festival season won't fall right for her touring, she's back here Oct/Nov isn't she

I kept trying to log onto the bar wifi by using bait passwords - no success, but I did see the ice cream stand brought their own starlink haha

Three years running there's been a sustained period of outage where the bars can't take orders, with this year's being the longest and most awkwardly time (in hindsight last year, the bar in the folly being unable to take orders at midday on Sunday was probably for the best). It's basic, and known and contributes to my nagging feeling that the fest is fraying a bit under financial pressure because so much of what they do is so slick, but then they keep ignoring the bar wifi???

I was scanning every crowd I was in for you, but I was also wellied non stop haha Line up underpowered but it's a wonderful place. The peaks were very high. We're big campervan converts

Good point - I saw them put up more signs over the weekend instructing how to use them, clearly the learning curve caught them out, and some pre comms might have been better

I was going to say something nice about it's always a testamount to the professionalism of the set up of EOTR that so little ever leaks out until they want it to. But then you slagged the National so thank your stars I didn't meet you in the campervan park after dark to box yer ears in young man