It's The End Of The Road - Part The Second

I was going to do a re-cap of the End Of The Road Festival a lot sooner but I seem to have spent the last week and a half with a series of hang-overs that have left me unable to be able to do anything other than cry or watch Heroes dvds. When I’m feeling particularly sprightly I can sometimes manage to cry AND watch Heroes dvds.

Writing this on Wednesday morning having broken the unwritten rule (that needs to be written by someone very quickly) of no Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night drinking in a work week, things don’t seem to have improved much.

In short, I am tired. If Satan had a dog then its eyes would look very much like mine do now. No doubt its mouth would also have a similarly horrifying taste lurking in the depths of it.

Reading the site I see that due to a post by the man-child Debris, thunder had been stolen and wind removed from sails. And thank God, as most of those acts had disappeared into a small tightly sealed box in the back of my mind due to a Saturday day-time on the Pimms and an evening where I consumed a whole bottle of vodka.

On this theme here’s a tip - if you’re ever camping with Debris and he’s gone to bed early, do not turn up at his tent at 3am and see if it’s possible to fit five men in his two-man tent. This is not appreciated and is apparently not as funny as it seems to be at the time.

Now what he neglected to mention was the fact that he bowed out of the festival early on the Sunday (if a man such as Debris can be said to be built for anything, then it is for small suburban towns in South-East London and not for the countryside) and by doing so, missed arguably the two best acts of the weekend.

My main reasons for going to it were to see Jens Lekman and Lambchop, although obviously as soon as the schedule came out I realised they clashed. Now, having endured Glastonbury this year I am more than used to “organisers” (and I use that term very loosely when it comes to the Glastonbury fiasco) ruining my weekend by having all the best people on at the same time. However, at the last minute Lekman decided to switch his set to an hour and half later and the beginning coincided beautifully with the ending of Lambchop. There was even time to send a minion to the bar to bring me more cider. Suddenly everything was coming up Stardust.

Before I go into that evening I want to back up Debris on Willard Grant Conspiracy. They’ve long been a favourite of mine and if you want to know why then here is Work Song.



Willard Grant Conspiracy – Work Song


Lambchop have become a mildly more stripped down proposition of late and have lost the string section. In all honesty it doesn’t really matter; they’re still just one of the most astonishing bands around today. If you don’t know them then the closest thing I can compare them to would be to maybe Nick Cave, but with light and beauty filtering into the dark places. Anyone who doesn’t own Nixon needs to sell hand jobs down at the docks until they’ve scraped together enough pennies to go out and buy it (or just nick it from HMV, I know a way of getting past their security system – email me if you want the secret).

I felt they lost their way a bit with the big double album which I’ve never been properly able to get my head round, but the last album was also fantastic. It takes seeing them play live to remember exactly how unique this band are as they launch into one beautiful song after another with Kurt Wagner’s amazing voice and truly great lyrics. The highlight of the set was the encore where they came back on with Howe Gelb to perform Up With People. How can a lyric like:

We are screwing up our lives today

Sound like the most joyous and life affirming thing ever said by anyone? Prior to this though they had made Howe Gelb read a paragraph from Bez’s autobiography whilst they all sat around laughing their heads off. Hearing that deep Southern accent recounting an anecdote about a Manchester club where the floor was covered in piss and the women stank of piss will go with me to the grave. They then finished with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel #2. Yes, it was good. Here is The Man Who Loved Beer.



Lambchop – The Man Who Loved Beer


By the way, Kurt Wagner is playing a solo show at Union Chapel for which, criminally, there are still tickets. You must go.

Now last up was Swedish troubadour Jens Lekman. At times during his set I described it as Adam Green fronting Belle and Sebastian. At other times, when my mind wandered, I described it as Mike Flowers fronting Belle and Sebastian. But fine lines such as these need to be trodden by someone and 90% of the time the result was perfect pop. If you like pretty girls playing trumpets and saxophones over songs dedicated to hairdressers then this man is for you. Here is his song Black Cab which is on his collection Oh You’re So Silent Jens.



Jens Lekman – Black Cab


I was then kept awake all night by the kids sitting up and playing their electronic music on a "ghetto blaster". I grow old, I grow old…


Ricky Stardust


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