REVIEW

End Of The Road Festival

Larmer Tree Gardens September 1 to 4

American rock goddess AJ Haynes shakes her big afro and flashes her alligator tattoo as she struts across the stage

She’s the frontwoman of the Seratones, who produced such a scorching set on the main stage on Saturday afternoon that we didn’t even notice we were getting drenched in the rain.

Haynes has an incredible voice full of soul and passion, honed in the Baptist churches of Louisiana. She plays a mean Fender and her band thrash out dirty blues-infused garage rock which could only come from the Deep South of the US.

Back home she is a high teacher of broadcast journalism and drama, but when she hits the stage AJ turns into an incandescent ball of energy, showing her absolute joy in performing with cheeky little smiles.

They also played a late-night set in the Tipi tent and produced an even more blistering set, with Haynes jumping down to the mosh pit and literally shaking the barriers during the frenzied climax of their show. An amazing performer.

EOTR prides itself on being eclectic. What other festival would have a line-up where you’d go from the beautiful trance-inducing Malian blues of Tuareg outfit Imarhan to the hard core noise of Sarf London Oi band Hard Skin?

I missed all the comedy on offer this year, but Hard Skin were hilarious. This was mainly due to 26-stone bass behemoth Fat Bob who harangued the audience for having beards and drinking real ale at £5 a pint. Their songs were more shout-a-longs you’d here on the football terraces but still funny, plus they had T-shirts with slogans on that would probably get you arrested .

As always EOTR throws up an incredible range of bands that you’d never heard of before but are absolutely brilliant. They are on the cutting edge of contemporary music in all its forms. It’s just a shame that due to time constraints and the amount of acts they pack in you invariably miss much of it.

Amber Arcades opened the festival music wise on Friday on the wonderful Garden Stage. It’s the band project of Dutch musician Annelotte de Graaf who writes songs of ethereal beauty. Swirling pop with heartbreaking melodies that made the back of my head tingle. It was the perfect start to the weekend.

In complete contrast Margo Price is a country and western singer in the same mould as Loretta Lynn. Her back story of personal loss, alcoholism and breakdown is reflected in her gritty songs delivered with a powerful classic county twang and a no-nonsense stage presence.

In the Big Top there were two outstanding new British bands.

The Big Moon may well turn out to be the best all-girl band ever. They have an amazing powerhouse of a drummer in Fern Ford and though they haven’t even released their debut album they are destined to be huge with their quirky pop songs. They have a great sense of fun too as they brought a gang of the festival posties on stage with them for the final number.

London trio Shopping reminded me of the legendary Slits. Guitarist and singer Rachel Aggs plays sharp angular plain tone guitar riffs which also recall Gang of Four and Wire and sings great catchy songs about the all-pervasive lethargy of consumerism. Agit-pop never sounded so good since the days of post-punk.

GOAT are a psychedelic trance collective from Sweden. They all wear spooky voodoo masks and play mesmerising tribal rhythms.

The two female vocalists steal the show in their amazing African dresses and Carnival style headgear and danced like whirling dervishes throughout the entire set. They drove the crowd at the main stage into such a fervour that they were even allowed an unprecedented encore.

EOTR have done it again providing a spectacular smorgasbord of musical talent and wonderful memories to savour until next year.

GRAHAM JAMES