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robith

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Posts posted by robith

  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. 25 minutes ago, Johnny5eyes said:

    That's a very decent line up, I find the antipathy to Idles on here somewhat baffling and the idea that 'Idles fans' wouldn't be interested in anything else on the bill completely ridiculous. However quite a lot of repeat bookings so not sure it's quite enough for me to decide to go this year.

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

  4. 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

  5. 1 hour ago, Johnny5eyes said:

    As a follower of a lower league football team all this EOTR headline speculation reminds me of the transfer window. Loads of optimistic speculation and you end up with a defender on loan from QPR or Unknown Mortal Orchestra. 

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

  6. 16 hours ago, wolfamongwolves said:

    Explosions in the Sky were wonderful last night in Manchester.  

    A return would be most welcome from me 

    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.

  7. 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

    • Like 1
  8. 17 minutes ago, Mike Hall said:

    Weyes Blood would be a superb Garden Stage headliner. Also, shout out to Cory Hanson, who produced the best 'guitar' album of the year. Saw him at a tiny venue in Bristol the week before EOTR and he was brilliant.

    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

  9. 2 minutes ago, The Nal said:

    Which only costs a couple of hundred quid to sort out properly. Don't think its anything to do with money. Just poor planning. You could run one of the bars off a hot spot on your phone (if there was signal) but thats how little data a till uses. 

    The problems start when you have a cobbled together mish mash of a set up which they apparently do. 

    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

  10. 19 minutes ago, Mardy said:

    yeah, I was thinking that about the wifi - they lost over 2 hours worth of bar takings in the main bar onsite on a lunchtime/early afternoon in good weather; I'd imagine into the 10,000s in lost takings. Surely the cost of sorting the IT infrastructure out can't be that much.

    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???

  11. 2 hours ago, Mardy said:

    hehe, fair point. kept an eye out for you over the weekend, but alas to no avail. You enjoy yourself?

    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

     

  12. 10 minutes ago, snipe said:

    Add more sawdust boxes with better scoops and keep the sawdust boxes filled. Every place only had one sawdust box this year and it was often not near half the toilets it was serving and the cups were bad at scooping enough.

    Get a proper pre-festival communication on how there will be much less seen and smelled when sawdust is used and that you are doing your bit etc. and people will actually do the sawdust bit.  This year they just mentioned they'd be compost toilets and linked to the providers site way way down in a general info mail.

    Have a little brush to clean up spilled sawdust as any sign of "mess", no matter how benign, on the seat area looks off putting.

    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

  13. 49 minutes ago, Mardy said:

    The 'special relationship' with the festival thing is, I reckon, often overstated. Decent sized acts might not get a sniff of where's available or where they're playing before it's been through promoters/management etc. If the money isn't there, a  might not even know they've been offered EOTR unless Simon has the lead singer/guitarist/drummer's brother's phone number.

    That's why I think the Wet Leg thing was a genuine coup/one off, and also why there was a real lock down on this, with no real leaks right up till the very end. Simply because I think it didn't go through all the normal channels.

     

    Also, can I just say f**k Suede/Ash/James, and indeed, The National.

     

     

    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

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