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End of the Road festival review – engagingly eclectic weekender never fails to surprise
A headlining Slowdive ticked the indie boxes, but Lankum’s intense folk, Paranoid London’s filthy techno and Nourished By Time’s slick R&B grooves once again prove this festival has punch and personality
It’s a feeling echoed throughout the weekend: Bill Ryder-Jones declares EOTR his favourite gig of the year as he plays a sun-drenched Garden stage in a set that is dripping with palpable melancholy as much as it is understated beauty and quiet triumph, especially during an intensely moving and sweeping version of This Can’t Go on. Playing to a huge audience, including perhaps to their youngest ever fan, a two-month-old baby, they open with a stretched out version of The Wild Rover and build up drones and engulfing atmospherics with slow, steady, yet often brutal intensity. The slick pop and R&B grooves of Nourished By Time add a real glimmer to the ominous grey weather, Ebbb fuse choral falsetto vocals with squelchy electronic beats and rattling drums, the grinding bass-heavy charge of MC Yallah & Debmaster whips the Sunday audience into a frenzy, and the sultry soul strut of Jalen Ngonda radiates joy.
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