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liarliar

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  6. My review...for what it's worth...

    in End of the Road

    Posted

    Morning campers...

    This was my 5th EOTR festival and probably my worst. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, I did, but I felt a little less "in love" this time around.

    We didn't get off to a good start, to be honest, because we found out that we had punctures in the air bed and we couldn't fix them. So we traipsed off to get a new one...and found that the nearest place was Salisbury. This meant a 75 minute round-trip to Argos in Salisbury. The traffic getting there was awful...not too bad coming back.

    And then The Crow "pub". What a nightmare. Queued for 25 minutes for a couple of pints - was at the front for about 20 of those and still no service. The staff were jumping all over the place along the tables so they clearly couldn't see who had been waiting. I gave up and got the EOTR ales at the left hand side instead. I gave up queuing a second time, too, just because it was so busy. Crazy, really, because the cider / lager part was mostly deserted while the real ale part was rammed. I don't think that the access to only two tills worked to speed things up either.

    After the first day, they stopped advertising what beer was on, too, so you could only see what was available when you were at the front. Anyone know why they removed the chalkboard?

    In future, I am definitely taking a couple of mini-casks and not bothering with the bars.

    The site was once again looking great. Not much noise-bleed from other stages (if any?) and easy access between them. Food stalls were also very good. Rotisserie chicken and the veggie curry place were excellent. I wonder how the panini stall was doing? £5.50 for a basic panini...must be joking. I could probably have completed a whole sticker album for that price!

    Practically every person we came across were smiley and friendly. A really good "vibe" all over! Just a shame we ended up camping right next to a group of selfish nobs who thought it was okay to have loud conversations at 3.45am (Friday night) and 4.45am (Saturday night).

    Music highlights for me included...

    David Byrne & St Vincent

    King Khan (bit of a larf)

    Parquet Courts (probably my highlight)

    Leisure Society

    Dawes (better than I expected)

    Pokey Lafarge

    Belle & Sebastian

    Daniel Norgren

    Frontier Ruckus (awesome sound)

    The Walkmen

    Jens Lekman

    Merchandise

    Music disappointments...

    Eels (probably going to get a lot of disagreement here but I found him shouting "YEAH" after the end of every song a bit weird)

    Money (was really looking forward to these...bit samey...and he kicked his shoe into the audience halfway through and it hit a woman...and he laughed while "apologising"...nob!)

    Sigur Ros (quite a fan...but I thought their set-list was odd...the first half a dozen songs were all of the same ilk...got bored and left)

    For the first time in 5 years, I stumbled across someone playing a "secret set" on the Piano Stage. It was John Murry. I quite like his album but he wasn't half strange. Looked like he just got kicked off the set of a Twilight movie for bringing everyone down!

    Anyways, in spite of the moans, I did enjoy it and will be getting the early bird tickets...

    Oh..weather was nice, wasn't it.

    And finally, AndyLoos...marvellous. And the Dorset Farm shop...bit pricey but the food was very good.

  9. My review (for what's it worth).

    in End of the Road

    Posted

    You're definitely in the right area, but not sure about a northern accent. Then again I'm not good with accents at 4am in the morning...and to be honest I was with others and one of them described the hair colour.

    I think she had to be told about 4 or 5 times to shut up around 3-4am on Sunday morning.

    C.

  11. My review (for what's it worth).

    in End of the Road

    Posted

    Right, straight off the bat, I just want to say that I thought this year's festival was the best I've been to so far. This is my fourth...and while other years had Okkervil River, this was overall the best so far.

    Stand out bands for me were:

    Grandaddy

    Patti Smith

    Deer Tick

    (that's some festival finale right there!)

    First Aid Kit

    Doug Paisley

    Robyn Hitchcock

    Jeffrey Lewis

    TOY

    William Elliott Whitmore

    The Deep Dark Woods

    Veronica Falls

    Cashier No 9.

    [and Robin Ince - favourite comedian - always makes me laugh stupidly even though I've seen the same routines over and over!]

    I think there was only one weak band for me and it was The Stepkids. A jazz funk abomination. Gawd it was bad. Though my other half would probably add Frank Fairfield to this. I quite liked him - looked like Kevin Kline, too.

    Would liked to have seen more of Creature With The Atom Brain and Hurray For The Riff-Raff. Both appeared to be really entertaining from the snippets I saw. I also listened to Woods and Grizzly Bear from a distance and perhaps should have made more of an effort as they sounded really good, too. Could never get into Veckatimest but sounded good live!

    I did have a couple of minor niggles. One is the beer staff. I appreciate that there is a premium to the price because it's festival and all that but please tell them at just under £4 a "pint", 20% of it should not be head. It didn't happen every time but I did have to ask for a top up 3 or 4 times which is a little annoying.

    Food prices are a little high, too. Again, I know there is a premium and I guess the "pitch" at the festival is costly, but while Bhatti Wraps are very nice, £8 for a snack is a little too much. I'm not singling Bhatti Wraps out here...I just felt that I was rarely getting a "meal". I suppose the Rotisserie Chicken was an exception...

    Experiencing this over-pricing over the last few years has led to the gf and I bringing a lot more of our own food and alcohol. I spent a lot less this year because of that...and swigging my own sloe gin from plastic bottle was very enjoyable...and meant a lot less trips to the loo.

    ...which leads me onto Andy Loos. Why do we think we ought to tip bar staff and not these Andy Loos people? I found the toilets absolutely spotless right up until the end. And that work is deserving of a tip, right? Anyways, if anyone from EOTR actually reads these posts, then I'm giving thanks and massive positive feedback to the Andy Loos people. Although, I don't care too much for his sister, Rebecca.

    What else?

    The site was still beautiful, as ever, and managed to hold up to the weather prior to the festival and those little bits while we were all there.

    The path of doom has been whipped into shape - thanks!

    The extra field of family camping was welcome - it seemed a little less busy in the general camping area.

    Folk were kind and friendly. Experienced very few people who came to chat during performances, thankfully. Although I do welcome years of misfortune for the posh-sounding ginger-haired girl who was camping with two other girls in a large green tent in "general camping". Although I'm sure she was just chatting to her friends, it did sound like she was selling newspapers from a stand at 4am. Mouthy cow!

    Anyways, that's about it. Will be spending £260 tomorrow morning!

    C.

  16. No Direction Home - post-festival thoughts...

    in End of the Road

    Posted

    As regular EOTR-goer, it was really good to see the same charm present here. Really liked the site, the stages were great and so were the stage-timings (I agree with the person who mentioned this point on the FB page for NDH).

    Food was excellent, with just the one negative. Bhatti Wrap was great, the mexican place was very good. PurePie (or whatever they're called now) was hit and miss. Everyone in my group enjoyed theirs, but my Chicken & Ham should really have been labelled Pea and Leek for the amount of meat in it! Mine was very poor, others were not so.

    Beer very good...the Portland Black was a winner...as was the hot cider (as always).

    Oh...The Welbeck Shop. Aces! Everything in this shop was fantastic....the bread, the chutney, the cheese, the pork pies... The sun coming out for the Sunday led to a terrific picnic in front of The Wave Pictures (pretty good) and Martin Carthy (I know others will hate this but I thought this olde / trad folk was just interminable...)

    Anyways...

    Music?

    I really enjoyed the following:

    Richard Hawley

    Gruff Rhys

    Austra (even though I only saw about 15 minutes)

    Django Django

    Laish

    Andrew Bird

    Special praise go to:

    Josh Tillman

    Euros Childs

    Joe Gideon And The Shark (oh, the shark...)

    And, imo, performance of the festival goes to:

    Other Lives!!!!!

    Now, one whinge...no fault of the festival organisers or anything, but, why the f**k do people scramble towards the front of the crowd to see someone perform and then, at the moment they start singing, start to chat! This only really happened at the Andrew Bird set, though, thankfully. Firstly there was this one kid (with a shocking 13 year old boy style bum-fluff moustache) clearly off his face on drugs giggling like an 8 year old at a Bieber concert (I guess?), but he did shut up in the end. However, there must have been around a dozen adults continually chatting through the whole blasted act. Grrr.

    Overall, fantastic, I thought. The car park being right next to the camping area was a boon. The weather turning out better than forecasted was an even better boon!

    [and the two "sketches" from John-Luke and Nadia also very very good).

    Ll.

  20. Culinary high and low lights

    in End of the Road

    Posted

    Didn't have that much food in the arena...brought food to eat, mostly.

    Did have the Spicy Afghan wrap from Bhatti Wrap, which was nice. Buffalo Burger was very average.

    What gets me about the food options, apart from being a bit overpriced (as is always the case) is the fact that nearly everything was £6...or within 50p of £6. No matter what the ingredients, how cooked, how big the portion was, it was all £5.50 - £7.

    ...which sticks in the throat a bit. <cue pun>

    Chris

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