Pop Pillaging In The Countryside

Neil Jones on Darren Hayman, Jens Lekman, Scout Niblett and I'm from Barcelona at Salisbury's End of the Road

14th, 15th and 16th of September, 2007

Well, last year’s End of the Road in sunny Salisbury was pretty fantastic, so with a bag packed with food, drink, memories and warm stuff (just in case), I set off to this year’s event with a skip in the step. The roads are calm and the car park easy to navigate, and before we know it we’re walking the track up to the festival site eager to embark on some canvas engineering.

A little heavy work is usually fine by me to begin a festival, setting you up for the weekend of luxury ahead I think, but I’m weary of kicking pegs into concrete with my shoe… What’s under this End of the Road grass? Have they got something buried under there? Maybe it’s the rotting corpse of a mainstream festival, which is a soothing thought no doubt as we struggle and strive.

The tents finally go up, blood pressure providing a neat counterpoint, and it’s on with the business ahead. We’ve set up in the top corner of the festival, so it’s quite a walk up to the Somerset Cider Bus, yet that’s the only place to really christen my second EoR.

A hot and spicy cider is sampled to counter the weather, and a quick walk around the Larmer Tree Gardens further invigorates. There’s the renaissance mural painted onto the strange large concrete arch; the Garden Stage is parked there in the same place as last year where the peacocks roam, and here’s one now actually, trickling along with its offspring in tow and cheekily winking at us to the sounds of Stephanie Dosen’s glossy folk.

Dosen’s sounds float in an ethereal manner as the peacocks tap their feet, and if only the sun came out it’d be nigh on perfect. There’s another peacock sitting on a shed to welcome us as we explore the site further, walking down through a gravelled alley past chairs carved from wood on which sit a family of Paddington-style giant teddy bears, and an ample kids area that makes me wish I was a ten year’s old. And here’s The Local, the famous London venue that’s packed up and come to the country for the weekend, a droning guitar and some affectionate vocals welcoming us in to its hub.

For twenty minutes or so Actress Hands serenade us with some quite romantic indie rock and self-deprecating between-song banter, and they seem like generally ace guys, creating such a welcoming atmosphere, affectionate and genial. Everyone wills them on in their quest to shoot Queens of the Stone Age noise through Weezer’s magic Pop gun, and they accomplish it with a broad kind shimmer and smile.

Last year the small Bimble Inn tent was like a gift from Mars via Stockholm or New York, nocturnal wonder simmering as fancy-dressed regulars with unlikely athletic abilities prowled. First impressions this year are that it has a little more of a wild-west edge about it, and wow, there he is, our friend who regaled us with the most unlikely bit of athleticism I’ve ever seen last year, when he reacted to banging his head on the wooden arches with a fantastic Russian jig and front summersault into a seated position before falling back into an inebriated stupor… What a guy. The place is buzzing with tales of a Viking Moses set that we’d just missed, and I make a mental note to return very soon and possibly stay here for the whole weekend.

Ane Brun is due on next at the Bimble, and it’s a name that rings a bell, so the Swedish lounge next door provides a quick stop for some Swedish meatballs and a pear cider before her set starts, and we’re transported to a sultry acoustic world of cut-glass poetic sentiments. Brun has a voice coated in velvet, pulling a golden thread through her songs, romantic, graceful and poignant. Two backing singers stand at her side for an alternate 60s pop dooh-whopping effect, and the songs wrap around me like silk, reminding of the joys ahead on Sunday and in particular Jens Lekman, which is such a tremendous thing.

I leave before the last song, trickling out in a happy daze to make my way back across the grass. A game of Kubb (a cross between baseball and skittles, honed into a fine, if boring, art by the Vikings) is going on happily in the distance and a giant fire is being prepared for the night, the Thai restaurant sits there with no little allure, and in a reading room opposite I see someone feeding vinyl in a record player. But I’m determined to keep going in a straight line, and it gets easier as sounds begin to drift from the Big Top tent.

I’ve got one Scout Niblett single, and some reliable friends have ardently recommended her, but any preconceptions are blown away by her opening songs. The first two numbers are blindingly good, their perfect melodic structure sitting so well with her dyed-in-the-wool outsider air, creating a real poetic tension, and the huge crowd stands enthralled. It’s a genuinely humbling experience, and Niblett goes on to slay us with some extraordinary tempo changes and some of the greatest, most seductive rock growling I’ve ever heard. Cutting a diminutive figure on stage, effortless and natural, there’s a quiet suggestion of Kurt Cobain to Niblett, and, brilliantly, it comes with a starry-eyed wonder that points to far more poetic constellations.

The sky has cleared to Niblett’s sultry outpourings, and I head down to the Garden Stage with a friend’s words about Jim White ringing in my ears. I’d planned to get down there earlier for the hard drinking cult southern American legend, but the three songs I do catch are more than enough to get the impression that he’s an extraordinary figure. Tales of hard times and hard drinking are sung with a truly redemptive Country air, some superb lines emerging from the bottom of his whisky glass with wit and wisdom. White is wistful, emotional and funny, and I think everyone gets a bit emotional when he leaves us with some final words about his happiness and his son and his recovery from a suicide attempt.

A quick shortcut through a gate stage right and I’m back in the woods heading towards The Local. The name “Smoke Fairies” has jumped out of the line-up and danced before my eyes, and here they are now, looking angelic but giving birth to some low-down fairytale folk songs that take me right in. “Reckless Blamire” and “Dirty Davies”, as they somewhat grimily call themselves, delight in taking ancient folk sounds and making them their own sparkly toys, their voices merging in a husky crawl that snakes around their dusty guitar play, mysterious and evocative.

Dark has long fallen, and the lights that wrap around the trees light the pathways with exotic allure. The songs of Midlake creep around the Garden Stage and threaten to leap out of their restraints in fiery flames. Singer Tim Smith is alternating between instruments with noble versatility, singing his labyrinthine tunes with those haunted choirboy vocals that suggest fairytale lands beyond. Spectre sounds stalk the night air, calm and earnest against all the odds, and I hang around for a few numbers, and a few numbers more, before making my way again through the trail of lights to the underground.

The night is becoming a series of shuttle journeys between the Garden Stage and The Local in the trees, which is buzzing with tales of a reggae set from Natty that we’d just missed, so it’s backwards again to get a good spot for Yo La Tengo at the Garden Stage. The luxurious arena is heaving, beautifully-lit and buzzing in anticipation, but the New Jersey retinue are a contrary bunch, and I love the fact that, by way of introduction, they hit the gathered masses with three of their avant-twee pop numbers back to back. It’s obviously about to ascend, or descend, depending on your liking, into a subtle post rock rage, but I guess Yo La Tengo will be doing this with the same kind of nous in the year 3000, so it’s off again into the night.

I’d missed Viking Moses earlier, and it’s great to have the opportunity to catch them again on the same day. The Local tent is packed to the rafters, but I work my way in under the arches and reel to the opening songs, sung with a stunning, show-stopping indie grace by Ceylan Delikanli. Moses gyrate around her like a seven-person beast of visionary folk allure, and afterwards Delikanli recedes into handclapping duties, Brendon Massei taking over from the left to lead his variegated troupe through a set of mysterious indie-folk that sets the soul on fire. Massei himself has an amazing, apocalyptic voice, and he shares the rest of the vocal duties with another female member who sings along with a brilliant, effortless kind of soul. Drinks have possibly been taken, and the two cavort in brilliantly unhinged style, writhing round the stage together and blasting out tracks that leave us dancing and drooling in equal measure.

It’s getting on a bit now, and David Thomas Broughton is quickly announced as the last act on. He’s graciously allowed the previous band to cut into his set, but the twenty minutes he leaves us with are innovative and grand, his choirboy voice along with guitar and percussion rhythms being fed into an echo machine that helps him create beatific crescendos. Broughton is a remarkable act, calmly marching out of the tent after putting his bits and pieces into the echo machine and coming back again to put more in, and a piece where he sings grand madrigal lines into a mobile phone is not only profound but very, very funny. It’s a nice high point to end the day on, and with stars shimmering in the clear sky, tomorrow seems like one heavenly promise.

Day 2

You know that feeling you get when you’re camping, and you wake to find you’ve slept next to the tent mattress rather than on it, and thus spent half the night awake? It’s with a sense of what could have been that Saturday dawns, and, though sleepy eyed, I’m happy to emerge to find it’s a beautiful day, sunny and warm.

It’s all kicking off at 12 over at the Garden Stage, so a quick freshen-up over at the luxury water point and a bit of breakfast at the nearby breakfast bar and it’s away, scuttling across the arena. The place now really takes on its best light, the various food and wares stalls shimmering in the sun and the crowd, naturally, in the sun, just that little more chirpy.

As we walk down the slope to the Garden Stage, Sunny Day on Fire are hammering away like a Pop thunderstorm, and where last night’s superstars Yo La Tengo have crystallised into an avant-garde beast, these are almost purely sensual and visual thrills. Drummer Onyee bounds between instruments in a melodious sundance, and the five-piece band erupt around her in a manner their name would suggest. I get images of The Little Ones playing Yo La Tengo, and that, I think, is such a grand way open to the day.

Sunny Day Sets Fire leave us in a final explosion of melody, and it’s back across past the peacock perched on the reception roof to the Big Top to catch a band that I really fell for at last year’s festival. Hush the Many these days seem to be an enchanting Pop beast, looking fantastic on a stage decorated with a big Hush the Many banner, which looks fantastic too. They play with an involved kind of freedom that makes them look huge, five glowing figures etching joyous sounds that roll like molten lather. Humble poetic vignettes are strewn amongst what are now beautifully accomplished orchestral pieces, and it’s simply a breathtaking set that has everyone on the lawn afterwards exulting, so much so that we almost forget that it’s 2.15 and I’m From Barcelona are due on at the Garden Stage.

It’s the biggest rush of the weekend as we scuttle across, and thankfully we’re here in time. The stage is decorated with myriad balloons, and one of the twenty-nine band members takes a peak through the backstage curtains to see if it’s safe to come out yet. A thundering electronic version of their signature tune Treehouse emerges from speakers, and Emanuel Lundgren bounds out like the best karaoke star in the world, singing along in the most riotous yet twee fashion I’ve seen.

His band follow, rushing out with confetti spiralling everywhere, and here starts the best party in town, ever. I’m not sure if Barcelona time their confetti to fly with their choruses or vice versa, but whatever, it’s a brilliant Pop feast in the afternoon sun, We’re from Barcelona, Collection of Stamps, Oversleeping and Chicken Pox erupting like huge fireworks, and to their every ebb a different blaze of colour emerges from the stage.

Three black-suited male backing singers are going like crazy stage left, and the two colourfully dressed ladies in the middle are a wondrous visual focal point. It’s a sugar-rush frenzy, and a wave of giant balloons released from backstage sends kids running off from their parents through the crowd in pursuit, the successful ones returning proud with their new prizes, while stray balloons get stuck in the trees to provide a brilliantly surreal sight. A chorus of kazoos (“they sound terrible, so everyone should have one!”), some beatific hand-clapping and some more handclapping later and we’re left with a post-party feeling approaching total awe.

It’s now twenty minutes later and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to unglue the smile on my face, and it’s not as if there’s any really bad acts around to do it for me. The Concretes at the Garden Stage are pouting their way through a set of laconic and shimmering indie, led by new vocalist Maria Eriksson with a quiet kind of allure, and a quick glance at someone’s watch says it’s time to pop back off to the Big Top, where ex-Hefner man Darren Hayman is due on.

Last year’s traditional Hayman set at End of the Road caught on with the crowd pretty late, everyone seeming to step into the tent about twenty minutes in, but there’s no such meandering today, and it’s a real buzz to have the Hayman experience with another few hundred admirers. The Big Top is heaving, and Hayman’s on top form, songs from his new record with current band the Secondary Modern really hitting home with quintessential humour, romance and intelligence. He announces a good-natured “ukulele vs fiddle challenge” before one track which teems brilliantly and hilariously with their dual rhythms, and watching Hayman live always throws up particular personal highlights.

I’ve already got my head in the stars after the rakish strains of Let’s Go Stealing, the exquisitely-swaying Nothing in the Letter and the better-than-Hefner She’s Not For Me when the first notes of the classic Hello Kitten set me and everyone else ablaze. A raucous feast of poetic Pop sentiments has made me dizzy in appreciation, and in a personal note soon after I declare my retirement from ever writing about him again. I’m not sure if I’ll stick to my word, that’s not really the point, but one more thing in case I do - you’ve simply got to hear the way the ukulele runs through his new album… It’s like some high-powered beast, the eighth wonder of the indie world…

A “secret Hayman gig” has been announced to the whole of the Big Top tent, and it’s “over by the piano, in the woods”, so I set off to check out the trail in order that I can eliminate some of the inevitable wrong turns when I make my way over later. I haven’t traversed these paths yet and it’s a great little walk, taking me around the front of the Garden Stage area and through a cluster of fairy-lights intricately wrapped around the trees to the final destination, a lone piano with a modest grassy area for people to sit down. Satisfied of my bearings, I make my way back

Blanking the Cider Bus with an intrepid air I make my way down the side-alley to The Local where another little revolution is taking place. I can’t get inside at first as the place is bulging with people like a scene from a cartoon, but what I hear makes me hang around. I edge my way closer and closer, first making out the violinist and her friend standing next to her on backing vocals, both writhing around in a sultry manner and contributing their bits with fervour, then as I get closer I make out the guy at the helm, an Indian-American who turns out to be a such a great talent.

The band are called The Young Republic, and they treat us to a feast of old Pop nuggets played in the beatific language of party-folk. Violins sway, brass parps, a flute moans, mandolins fly, a contrabass underpins, and we’re swept along in devilish complicity. The Young Republic provide a classical/folk tinged feast of ingenuity and retro grace, and to top it all we have possibly the best comic line of the weekend so far from the lead singer, who dedicates one number to “the American version of The Office.”

Having retired from writing about Darren Hayman a while back, it’s time to make the walk up to the secret piano setting to see him again, and, well practiced, I find a seat on one of the last remaining bits of open space and sit quietly with a cider. This is to be a performance by his bluegrass band Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee, and they all stand there in an imaginary spotlight the best of humour, Hayman introducing them all with comic nonchalance before someone says “go”, and they leap into action like troubadours of old.

There’s no PA system present, and we barely here them at first. Two-hundred or so people have gathered, maybe more, and it’s like trying to see in the dark. Slowly though we adapt our ears, the banjo merges with fiddle, percussion and guitar, the dual voices of Hayman and David Tattersal ring out that little bit louder, and we have a kind of London bluegrass miracle on our hands, the Hefner wit written right through it.

It’s a terrific half hour or so, perfectly formed songs and an amazing atmosphere, and as the music begins to intrude on our little party from the main stage, signalling the end of the gig, I find it really hard to tear myself back. Hayman cajoles Tattersal into plugging his gig with The Wave Pictures tomorrow, another mental note is made to check them out, and it’s off back though the magic trail of lights to rejoin the teeming masses.

Many a recommendation has passed me by over the coarse of the year, but a friend’s passion for Danielson has stuck in the memory, and I kind of see why as back at the Big Top all the rules of Pop are torn up before my eyes and put back together in new constellations. Danielson himself remains relaxed as his band of new folk warriors erupt around him with short, sharp hooks and staccato ingenuity, and he feeds into it a laid-back kind of lyrical air that makes for an enjoyable, fascinating gig. So fascinating in fact that I completely miss Brakes down at the Garden Stage, which is a terrible thing to have happened.

We hang on in the Big Top to enjoy Architecture in Helsinki’s avant-garde sounds for a while, rising and falling into some frenzied land between Sunny Day Sets Fire and Yo La Tengo, all drama, passion, fragmented hooks, quirks and fiery yhelps, but time is running out to grab a drink and something to eat before Super Furries play the peacocks’ den, so it’s off to The Bimble Inn to meet friends and huddle in anticipation.

After the day we’ve had, it’s fitting that tonight’s headliners are not some pretentious troupe of doom-mongers, and we wander over for the Super Furry Animals relaxed and ready to enjoy. Gruff emerges from somewhere round the back, someone comes out wearing that really funny giant Power Rangers helmet sideways, and it’s off we go into an alternate land of humour and light-hearted wonder.

Do or Die, Rings Around the World, God Show Me Magic, Ice Hockey Hair and Hello Sunshine have never sounded better, buzzing along in a manner that makes the crowd exult in one dizzy pile, and come the end we’re left in a beatified sort of state, baying for a more from the Furies’ enchanted cartoon land.

A pal decides we should visit Port O’Brien at the Bimble Inn rather than the very enticing Tack! Tack! Tack! DJs playing Swedish discs at the Big Top, and though the thought of what they’re spinning over there nags at me a little during their set, O’Brien are fantastic, playing folk and country with a certain guile and purity and spilling poignant shanties out into the night in grand style. It’s been a fantastic day, full of Pop moments that’ll stick in the memory for a long while to come, so it’s off back to the tent, on with the I-Pod, and off to sleep with dreams of tomorrow. Isn’t Jens Lekman supposed to be playing?

Day 3

The sounds and magic of yesterday sustain us on a Sunday morning of overcast skies and bracing winds, and we shelter a while for breakfast in the Swedish lounge before sharpening up a little and heading off to sample more pleasures… Today’s line-up on paper shimmers with diversity, a smattering of American folk here, a sprinkling of underground indie there, and a whole bag of alternate thrills waiting around the corner. It’s the final day of End of the Road, and the weather can go to hell.

There’s some Pop pillaging due at the Big Top, and that’ll soon provide our first stop of the day. It’s Pete and the Pirates, and “lunar guitar play” is a term that fits them like a glove. The Pirates have been a fixture on my stereo since their Stop, Wait, Begin EP a few months back, and I join the various people scattered around quietly seated on the grass. What I know, and most of them don’t, is that we’re soon to be subtly transported to the stars.

Pete and the Pirates are an absolute breath of fresh air, and as they shoot their intricate vocal and guitar melodies out into the tent, any remnants of a Sunday hangover are totally slayed. The Pirates have a conventional line-up of bassist, guitarists, drummer and dual vocalists, but they wrench out of it original songs of such ebbing grandeur. Come on Feet moves out of subtle electric rhythms into a broad and spectral nugget that’s as uplifting as a truck-load of valium, This Thyme takes my breath away as it builds so subtly into mini-crescendos, gently encouraging vocals about eating your greens and keeping your dreams quaintly charming, and new track Knots is a sideways cacophony of guitar and vocal melodies to absolutely die for. It’s forty-five minutes that flies by like two, a tempered fire, blazing and ebbing at the band’s will, and Pete and the Pirates depart like picaresque heroes.

It’s give, give, give with the Pirates, but with Jeffrey Lewis, up next at the Big Top, I feel we might have to give something back – our total attention, otherwise the songs might pass us by. A huge crowd has gathered for the precociously talented New Yorker, and for the first few numbers I wonder if he’s not diluting his message a little by having a supporting band - a female keyboardist who also takes co-vocal duties, and a bassist.

There’s also a big screen set up in the corner, showing images sent in by his fans over the last few months, but after a while it all begins to settle and Lewis’s hitherto incidental mumbles form patterns that become more and more eloquent. There’s no melodic pretension to Lewis’s band, their minimalist sounds coating his vocal outpourings in dark allure, and his songs are as close a representation of his comic book art as they could be in musical form, rhythmic stream-of-consciousness outpourings with an alternately personal and political edge.

Lewis’s set is claustrophobic in places for sure, his more political torrents a little trying, but the more personal tracks, like his brilliant fairytale ramble on the nature of creativity, The Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror, are absolutely brilliant. He keeps the Oldham Horror, his trademark song, till the end, and is so soulful and spot on in following its labyrinthine vocal track. The place erupts in an elongated applause, and I leave the Big Top both edified by my hard work and uplifted by the contrary magic.

Darren Hayman had mentioned it yesterday, and now there’s a choice to be made. It’s between Herman Dune at the Garden Stage and The Wave Pictures at The Local. Herman Dune are on first, fifteen minutes before The Wave Pictures, and they have their backing girls The Babyskins with them. I’d seen them a couple of times this year before, and the girls haven’t been there, so I have to stick around for the start.

1,2,3 Apple Tree sounds just terrific with The Babyskins’ added cooing behind David-Ivar Herman Dune, who himself seems on top form, rambling in his surreal and affectionate manner between songs, as he’s prone to do, and Take Me Back to New York City comes next to form the most wondrous of melodic/poetic double-punches, beautifully played and aching with afternoon romance. I’m satisfied it can’t get too much better than this, so I pop off down the alleyway stage-right and through the trees to The Local.

I’d thought David Tattersall was great alongside Darren Hayman in yesterday’s secret gig, and first impressions of his own band The Wave Pictures are pretty grand. There’s no such elaborate plan as a set-list, and they’re taking requests from a small army of fans that have also bravely forsaken the Dune. The Wave Pictures songs seem to be cut from the same trees as those of Hefner, maybe slightly more theatrical and folky, Tattersall’s voice rasping yet boyish and charming. They’re amorous, outlandish tales sang with humour and earnestness, and the guys play them with poetry and gusto, getting the little tent swaying in appreciation.

The Wave Pictures have been terrific, and nice in every possible way, but now a barrage of noise meets me from the Garden Stage, and I make my way across to find the immaculately-bearded Archie Bronson Oufit absolutely pummelling through their set. The Bronson drums are erupting like thunderstorms in the speakers stage right, and the people standing there are braver I. I stealthily make my way round the back to a more sensible position in the middle, and really, this is some of the most stylish, insanely loud music I’ve ever heard.

The whole Bronson Outfit are really into it, hammering out winding numbers that shimmer in the grey afternoon and threaten to clear the skies for us, and if only we could aim the speakers that little bit higher I’m sure they could. I’m a little overwhelmed, and so are my ears, which cry little yhelps of joy as it squalls to a stop, and it’s out into the trees again for some well-earned recovery time.

Folk Idol is about to take place at The Local, a competition in which some of the young End of the Road luminaries have gathered to be challenged to a performance of an old folk classic, which will then be judged by a panel led by The Broken Family Band’s Steven Adams, but the slightly more outré promise of Misty’s Big Adventure pulls me away, and it’s back up through the familiar peacock trail.

Misty’s are an elaborate contrast of energies, trumpeter/co-vocalist Hannah Baines a bundle of vintage theatricality stage right, a character in a one-hundred-handed rubber suit running amuck, and Grandmaster Gareth calmly orchestrating from the middle space. There’s a whiff of fairground showmanship about the Grandmaster, organising his folk-pop freak show with a mischievous air, and some genuinely good cabaret pop songs and a lot of dancing later, we emerge from the tent like we’ve just rolled out of a tumble dryer.

In the light of Misty’s everything outside now seems quite sober, so I grab a quick snack at the Thai restaurant and head up to The Bimble Inn. Charlie Parr had last year played the Garden Stage, and it seems like the crowd here would do a good job of filling that mass expanse, let alone this humble den. The place is heaving, but we weave our way inside, and are met by some truly magical sounds.

There’s something special about folk music when it’s played with this kind of grace. I can hardly see Parr through the crowd of people, but the sounds are amazing, soothing, profound and really evoking the spirit of the ancients. Parr is up there along as far as I can see, accompanied only by his twelve-string guitar and a banjo, and as we find a comfortable place to stand, time kind of stops still. We only catch the last ten minutes or so of his set, but it does feel like we’ve been standing here all day, and is more than enough to send us back out into the evening a little starstruck.

Twilight has descended on the last day of End of the Road, and Parr was the ideal act to ease us into it. The Broken Family Band now regale us at the Big Top with a set of Americana inspired romanticism, lead singer Steven Adams resplendent in a terrific fishing hat as his band stand around in a leisurely manner. The Family are a self-deprecating bunch, deadpan and disarming, and their songs are fantastic, melodious opuses that take us into their hearts with robust poetic lines. The band whip up a superb intensity with some slow-burning tracks that retain a dusty southern grace, and as guitars fly with gentlemanly abandon for the last track, it feels like it’s all ending far too soon.

There’s been a slight change in the line-up; Josh T. Pierson being thrust forward by an hour as Jens Lekman is late. It’s very dark already though, and as Pierson takes the stage it gets darker and darker, and then strangely lighter… First of all, Pierson’s beard is a wondrous thing, and he’s so laid-back and omniscient behind it that all kinds of images are conjured.

Pierson carries an apocalyptic kind of sadness and an alternately righteous and outlandish charm. He’s like an apostle sent by Apollo, who also has an air of the hell-raiser about him. His acoustic songs are absolutely mesmerising, personal, redemptive things of sacred beauty. At times he sinks so deep into them we can hardly hear him, but it makes me wince to hear people behind chattering and even laughing. Granted, the fact that you can barely see his mouth moving behind the brilliant beard provides a near-comical effect, but laughing is the furthest thing from the minds of 99.9% of the people here, including myself, who are totally transfixed. It’s like a holy man has arrived in our living room with tales of aching beauty and soul, and we fix the jokers with our best threatening eyes.

Pierson plays for an hour or so, and the intensity grows and grows, ironically as he becomes more and more relaxed, finally leaving us with a promise to play a bit more for us later, should anyone wish to lend him a tent-space for the night. I’d have him in my tent no problem, and so would a few hundred others, he won’t be short of offers, and he leaves the stage so humbly, not waiting for any kind of applause, but getting it by the bucket load.

A quick trip to the bar and we realise the time has come for Jens. It’s now twenty minutes until he’s on at the Big Top, and I haven’t felt this curious about a gig for a long time. Lekman’s songs have slowly caught me over the last couple of months, and now I can’t get away from them, but I’d always imagined him as the fierce outsider, serenading empty rooms with his beautiful melancholia, so the fact he’s now about to headline such a big stage seems strange, and wonderful.

People begin to file in, lots and lots of Jens fans that I didn’t know existed, and we huddle at the front as he takes his place behind his huge keyboard. Lekman cuts a fragile, pixie-like figure, a picture of sharpness and creativity, smartly kitted out in a made-to-fit suit and sparkling black shoes. His band follow, numerous backing singers, a horn section, and a violinist with maybe the coolest and most “Lekman-ish” look of the weekend, socks under tights. The music starts with some jazzy orchestration, and then the wonder kicks in…

It’s pretty upbeat, and in contrast to most of the older tracks I’ve been listening to, Lekman’s newer songs have a wonderful, shimmering orchestral melancholy. His lyricism is a thing to behold, running along the seams of his band’s melodies with a golden, sensual touch, romantic and totally enchanting.

Swelling like incoming tides and swishing like the breeze, the concomitant effect of Lekman and his music tonight is one of twinkling euphoria, and I could stand here swaying to it all night. These are songs that seem destined to be cherished and obsessed over by anyone with a penchant for the outsider poetry of Pop, and I don’t expect to ever see a better headliner at any festival, ever.

Jens’ melodies I’m sure will stay with me for the rest of the night, and after a brief walk around the woods to see of Josh Pierson is in fact playing again, it’s back to the Big Top for opening DJ set of the night by The Legend!, Everett True. I’d somehow always thought True was a balding man carrying a bit of weight, and on further examination he is – just the guy I thought he was in fact at The Local yesterday, standing there watching The Young Republic. Who this is then playing sultry slices of 60s and 70s Pop and Motown I don’t know, but I’m still thankful for a great hour of music. And I think everyone is thankful for the cider, bottles of which rain down on us from the Big Top gods in an outlandish manner, dancing towards us with that kind of allure free stuff tends to have.

It’s suitably oiled that some of us make our way up to The Bimble Inn afterwards for The Twilight Sad, who suck us to the front with their propulsive, quintessentially Scottish art-rock. It’s a celebratory kind of atmosphere down here, and The Twilight Sad temper it with alternately slinky, slender and visceral guitar play, punctuated by the passionate, searching vocal outpourings of singer James Graham. It’s a thrilling gig that takes us in a gloriously unsentimental manner towards the end of the festival, and yes, it is really all over. It’s been, how can I say, an absolutely kaleidoscopic, musically miraculous blast of a weekend, and I haven’t met one single person who won’t be returning next year with a bulging bag of memories and a million new friends.

© 2007 Neil Jones

© Miwsig