The Larma Tree Sonata

Neil Jones on Mercury Rev, Pete and the Pirates, Hefner, The Wave Pictures and the hidden treasures found at days 2 & 3 of End of the Road 2008

The End of the Road Festival, Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset, September 12th - 14th, 2008 

Day one having thrown up a not so remarkable cast, it's day two of End of the Road 2008, and, having pitched the tent unbeknown in the family camping area, we wake to the sound of a chorus of babies that resembles the opening segment of the Dante Sonata. It's ok though, as a day of music shines fantastically out at us from the open program that lies on the floor, covered in spiders.

The Garden Stage today is in its element, sitting at the bottom of the Larmer Tree manor lawn in the sun, affectionately decorated with the trademark EoR peacock emblem and a cardboard cut-out of a parrot, and Bowerbirds here are a downplayed delight, playing hushed folk music conceived for summer country days where all you want to do is lie in the grass and dream. The band caress our weary heads for a while until we can wear their smiles back out into the site, where higher-octane thrills await over the coarse of the afternoon.

A walk past the Comedy Arena through the Larmer Tree Gardens park where peacocks and children play takes us to the Bimble Inn for the first time. It’s a charming haven, a big tipi tent decorated in sparkling red fairy lights, and on stage is a lady who’s been causing quite a stir in the Welsh language scene of late. Cate Le Bone has a quiet on stage demeanour, but out of it comes a music so brave, passionate and creative. Celtic fairy tales glow pristine and beautiful in Le Bone’s hands, downbeat melodies flowing like silk, an intricate atmosphere prevails, and the sheer, hallowed tenderness of her set is something to behold.

Le Bone was one of those experiences that leaves you walking around in a happy daze for a while. The End of the Road bongo drummers now provide a dizzy soundtrack to some animation that’s being shown in the nearby cinema tent, the book stall sits displaying its wares of immaculate rebel literature, a Bhangra dancing class is in full flow at the Doing Tent, and the Duke of Uke shop is bouncing to a high-pitched jamming session.

Revenge of Shinobi wake us from the idyllic reverie with a set of white noise you could hang your sun-visor on, before the call of Screaming Tea Party resounds from afar at the Big Top, announcing the start of a trio of bands billed as the Stolen Recordings showcase. And what a site Screaming Tea Party are at first, lead singer Koichi pounding away on his bass in a black gas mask while his partner Niyan wields guitar whilst sporting a scarf wrapped up to his eyes. It's like death metal has arrived in Postman Pat's Greendale, until the noise slips into melodies and the melodies into lines of blindingly affecting, pidgin-English poetry. Screaming Tea Party's set is like watching someone juggle grenades, but when the grenades hit the floor we don't get the explosions of hostile noise as expected, but rather fragile melodies that open up magically to a playground of the soul. It's a stunning half an hour set that leaves us drooling.

No need to go anywhere else for now, even though the sun is inviting us back outside. The second band of the Stolen Showcase, Let's Wrestle, emerge soon after STP at the Big Top and ply a more earthly sound that nibbles our ears with sheer outsider indie smartness, rather than biting off our heads with intergalactic brilliance. Guitar, bass and drums interact with boyish glee, and it's a little like The Television Personalities playing songs written by Pete and the Pirates, or maybe Dave Shrigley, the comic book artist who’s famous work the band are named after; in other words, cuttingly brilliant, ramshackle, lyrical, savvy indie for the purest virgin hearts.

We're on quite a high in the Big Top, and, next up, Stolen's flagship band Pete and the Pirates manage to take it up another notch again. The Reading quintet are stylishly colour co-ordinated, and their music leaps about in similar fashion, pushing and pulling in a million directions and taking myriad hearts with it. The Pirates are possibly what The Strokes would be if they were conceived on the back of a poetic fanzine passion and lost loves, rather than glossy mag sex dreams and empty conquests, and the crowd is enthralled by the dual attack of swirling melodies and Pete's winsome lyricism, so much so in fact that no-one bats an eyelid when a blonde model shots seller floats through with a tray of vodka.

Pete and the Pirates are the stuff of wholesome dreams, providing another of those show-stopping festival gigs that kind of slay the appetite for watching anything else for a good while after, or should do, but soon after Alessi provides a wonderful surprise over at The Local, her music emerging like an imaginative, wonderfully-shaded childhood dream, and listening to the last ten minutes of her shyly etched new folk is like being shot by an army of musical cupids.

The dark has fallen over Larmer Tree Gardens and Low provide moods to match the hazy sky and the shaded moon that appears on the horizon. Low leading man Alan Sparhawk plays the curmudgeon with comic effect at first, giving an early monologue in which he asks if we've all had a good day, before telling us he’s had a really bad one, because someone he loves told him she hates him. The songs are stark, dreamy, and beautifully enhanced by one of the great voices of modern folk in Sparhawk's partner Mimi Parker, dripping with sentiment and melody, but there's always the sense with Low that a car-crash is about to happen. It's a sense that no doubt feeds the dubious, noir-ish beauty of their music, but when Sparhawk leads it into increasing waves of pure noise, we begin to sense something might really be amiss. He disappears deeper and deeper into a guitar fury, before at the end amazingly spinning around like a discus thrower and hurling his axe blindly into the teeming festival crowd, and it's only by luck that nobody was injured. While no-one wants to offer bourgeois moral judgements, whether this was born of Sparhawk's genuine torment or an impulse towards rock excess, it's not really impressive.

It's a wander round the woods next to prepare for what promises to be a rather more uplifting experience than Low, and when Jonathan Donahue emerges from behind his keyboardist, affects man, lead guitarist and bassist, swigging from a bottle of red wine, smiling ecstatically and waving to the audience, it's hard not to feel the magic in the air.

Donahue conducts Mercury Rev's dramatic opening like a wizard, firmly entrenched in his poetic planet where all possibilities remain intact. The sounds are blinding, mini operas written by the rock Hermann Hesse. Funny Bird bursts out so dramatic, symphonic and poised, like a lost Holst treasure, Donahue spouting the lyrics with a touch of mysticism that's oh so convincing. He stands on one leg and makes strange shapes as the music dictates, living every second of these beautiful poetic opuses and striving to ride them off into the night like a hero in a child's adventure tale. It's electric, the band pulsing around him all the while, each member similarly enchanted by their wonderful sounds, and when 'Goddess On A Hiway' is played as an encore, the whole Garden Stage field erupts.

Mercury Rev provide a performance we'll treasure for a long time. Two Gallants have the last say on the night at the Big Top, delighting a huge late-night crowd with their earnest, poetic indie folk, before, absolutely satiated by a great day of music, it's back to the tent to dream of Donahue's enchanted valleys.

End of the Road 2008 Day 3

The Sunday morning at End of the Road sees the sun blazing so warmly that it's even soothed the screams of the legion of babies that woke us yesterday at this most family-orientated of festivals.

A nearby wind instrument soundtracks our emergence from the tent, and it's brilliant to see, just a few metres away, on the path that leads into the festival site, a bunch of ten year olds busking on a selection of violins and guitars. Quite charmed, we make our way over past the group and throw some loose change in the hat, before upping the pace a bit to catch the start of The Wave Pictures at the Garden Stage, where frontman Dave Tattersall is in ebullient mood.

The Wave Pictures are a band of method and slow beauty. You can draw the most exhilarating lines through Pop culture whilst listening to them, lines that run through Ritchie Valens, ‘60s pop, Jonathan Richman and Darren Hayman. The Pictures slow it down to accentuate Tattersall's strange, inspiring and often romantic lyricism, speed it up to let us exult in the music, of which the interplay between bass and Tattersall's guitar is fantastic, and then do both together in ‘Love You Like A Madman’, a shimmering slab of open-hearted, celebratory pop in high-key which Tattersall dedicates to his mother. The Pictures are a painterly indie delight in the afternoon Dorset sun.

Next stop is the Bimble Inn, where the subtlest Welsh folk is caressing sun-burnt heads in the shade. Gareth Bonello, aka The Gentle Good, is on with his guitar, etching songs that evoke images of pastoral Wales, and where Cate Le Bone yesterday had a beguilingly modern beauty, one that borrowed just its textures from early folk, Bonello is happy to let himself get lost completely in old songs and tales. Bonello's guitar trickles like a Cenarth waterfall, and old songs run out of him pure as day, including one in particular, about a Welsh outlaw and drinker. It's a beautiful half an hour set, though alas we don't have the privilege of hearing his own English language nugget, the sun-kissed and lonesome ‘Waiting for Jane’.

It's a huge crowd for Kimya Dawson now back at the Garden Stage, and she has everyone eating out of her hand, affectionately witty lines raining down on the smiling masses, before Bob Log III calls from the Big Top, and seeing him sitting there in a pristine, purposely-built crash helmet with a mic fixed inside is quite something.

Log's crash helmet glows under the stage-lights, and his guitar playing is a party echo of blues legends. Log is a contemporary of Seasick Steve, in that he plays the blues with devilish old-style abandon, but closer to someone like Jonathan Richman in the way he embraces the party side of things with a certain carefree, tongue-in-cheek charm. He's a funny guy, stopping for a while after one track to have a meeting with the rest of his band (two bottles of beer that he turns round to speak to). We can't quite hear what he’s saying sometimes, maybe the mic in his helmet is not yet refined to its highest point, but the Bob Log III live experience is uplifting, and mad as a box of frogs.

Darren Hayman, Jack Hayter and various members (all three actually) of The Wave Pictures are the next attraction at the Big Top, and for the legions of dyed-in-the-wool Hefner fans that have gathered, it's welcome to heaven. Hayman's current solo stuff is every bit as good if not better than the classic Hefner material he's about to play, so we can understand when he immediately admits how awkward he feels re-visiting it again, but while he tries to set himself aloof with much goofing about and self-effacement, the excitement etched on faces in the huge crowd is testament to how special Hefner were.

For an hour the jaunty, poetic indie magic reverberates around the arena, and at times even Hayman himself can't help but enjoy it. Lyrical genius seeps through his pores, guitarist Hayter is in his element re-visiting the glory days, and The Wave Pictures revel in making up the Hefner numbers. The low-key hits flow in jerking waves, ‘The Hymn For The Alcohol’, ‘The Sad Witch’, ‘Painting and Kissing’, the nostalgic crowd slowly turning to jelly, before, at the end of a euphorically-received rendition of Hefner's politico party pop marvel ‘The Day That Thatcher Died’, the guitars are turned up a notch for an unlikely jamming session, and Hayman, Hayter and Dave Tattersall take turns to shoot for the stars.

It'll take a few deep breaths for any Hefner fan to come back to earth, but most are back at the Big Top an hour later for one of the bands responsible for firing Hayman towards the summit. The Mountain Goats are mellower than Hefner, more presentable, if not in any way fashionable either, and their songs provide more solace and special moments for the legion of indie dreamers who want to save their hearts for art, but just can't.

It seems to be a day of the most sublime outsider indie royalty at End of the Road, and Tindersticks provide a more classically tinged thrill down at the Garden Stage. Their music twinkles like a sky full of stars, all warm wonder and tender sentiment. For an hour a huge crowd hypnotically sways, letting all impurities float away, and I doubt there's ever been a better setting for a Tindersticks gig than here. It's just perfect.

Calexico provide the most apt closing sounds for this year's Garden Stage, their horn section chiming the sweetest tropical rhythms while the pedal steel resounds like an angel's call. It's quite irresistible, festive country magic that has the crowd dancing in the aisles, and the immaculate ‘Crystal Frontier’ and ‘The Ballad of Cable Hogue’ can't help but evoke memories of John Peel. Calexico's set is emotional, and boundlessly beautiful.

Brakes next are on fire in the late slot at the Big Top, flying through their set of pop-punk-country-death metal, providing a party and a musical feast at the same time. Brakes' leading man Eamon Hamilton is an absolute treasure, so unadorned and talented, informing his songs with the kind of soul you never come across at this tempo. It's helter-skelter one minute, and slow and beautiful the next.

Hamilton was married today, and undoubtedly the festival's most moving moment is when his wife comes out beaming in her wedding dress to join him in their trademark rendition of Johnny and June Carter Cash's 'Jackson'. It's teary stuff, the chorus shooting us a million miles in the air, and it's pretty glorious when the band end with an encore of two stormers that last little more than ten seconds a piece.

Sweden's Wildbirds and Peacedrums round off End of the Road '08 in thrilling style at The Local, where we might have expected a cheesy sing-a-long, bashing it right out with informed avant-garde madness. W & D's female singer is a livewire tuned to the stars, of outlandishly long eyelashes and wiry black hair, bashing drums in (or out of) tune with her off-kilter singing and wailing, and the at first unsettling effect for the crowd soon turns to total absorption.

End of the Road 2008 has come to a crashing end. But it's been some fairytale journey. All that's left is a visit to the Somerset Cider Bus, where a warm cider oils the appetite for a long dreamy sleep, and tomorrow it'll be back into the world so much richer.      

© 2008 Neil Jones

Article originally published on musicOMH.com

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