My big musical event in September was going to the End Of The Road festival, my first time there despite for years seeing the line-up and feeling that this was the festival most in alignment with my tastes. So, I went there with the intention of just bathing in four days of music and happily got exactly what I was looking for; I shall be returning. The musical highlights were indeed plentiful including one of my favourite bands, The Wave Pictures, playing an unscheduled, pile-driving Saturday afternoon slot as a late line-up replacement for Emma-Jean Thackray (who I was also looking forward to, hopefully catch her soon). Other high spots included Hurray For The Riff Raff, Kevin Morby, The Pixies and Ural Thomas & The Pain whilst among my most welcome musical discoveries were The Heavy Heavy and Bug Club. Still, as great as the whole experience was, there are one or two memories of a different type that will also endure in my memory and yes, there was the odd disappointment here and there.

Maybe I am naive, but I had not accounted for what a middle-class festival this is. Nothing wrong with that obviously, but I do wish that the music I regard as the better of today’s offerings was not merely the preserve of a certain type in society, it should be there for everyone. Kevin Morby and The Wave Pictures can rock the ordinary working classes just as well as this lot you know? What did I see that brought me to the conclusion of a middle-class clientele? Well, the sense that many in this crowd are holding down jobs in middle management was hard to shake, that they are dressed for a weekend of professional relaxation. Even those that looked a little rougher around the edges were not quite what they seemed; I brushed shoulders with a pair of combat booted, rakish libertine punks who in any other setting you’d cross the road to avoid for fear of them putting a knife to your throat and mugging you, only to catch the sound of their Prince Harry intoned voices discussing the merits of a stall selling artisan coffee.

During an afternoon slot by the singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell, she began to introduce a song from her brilliant folk-opera musical ‘Hadestown’ when a woman excitedly jumped from her seat and pulled the theatre programme out of her bag, waving it in the air and screeching “I know, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it!” I mean, who brings a theatre programme to a festival anyway? Look this is not a complaint, just an observation, most of the crowd were very friendly and likeable. During the Thursday night headline slot from Khruangbin the mainly instrumental band did struggle to hold the attention of many in the area I stood in. One chilled observer summarized, “they’re playing the kind of music that would have been on in the background at one of those seventies dinner parties where everyone had sex with everyone else’s partner.” This was kind of well observed and accurate I thought

Among the other acts who did not quite meet my expectations was Kurt Vile, who I did think was going to be to my liking thanks to the past inclusion of one or two of his songs in my playlists. But I don’t know, the mid-paced slacker grunge groove he solely occupies just bored me really, it was like Neil Young & Crazy Horse without any great songs and lacking in energy. The Sunday night headliner was disappointing too but for a wholly different reason. Bright Eyes main man Conor Oberst was halfway through his first elongated between song announcement when a crowd member turned to their friend and asked, “is he drunk”? Well, he was not merely drunk, he was totally shit faced. I have not seen someone so inebriated on stage since I saw John Martyn in the 1990s. Conor rambled on like that drunk person in the corner of a pub that everyone warns you to avoid making eye contact with. He slurred words, struggled to pronounce things like “privilege,” fell over a cable, fluffed intros, was cut from his monologues by sound crew cutting in with intro tapes and essentially held all our attentions because there was a sense that he might not make it to the end. To be fair, the band did carry it well and Oberst himself did manage to sing well enough, but then later the thought occurred “is he actually alright or is this a sign of some deeper problem?” Some post festival searching has shown that this worrying behavior has actually been evident for a while now, the guy clearly needs an intervention. I hope it happens, there are far too many of the better talents in the music world taken from us too soon (see my September playlist entry for tragic evidence of that).

Anyway, End Of The Road, I look forward to returning in 2023.