EOTR, then. Must admit I wasn't all that excited about the prospect beforehand, but I have no hesitation in saying it's by far the best music festival I've ever had the pleasure of attending. The setting is beautiful, the atmosphere relaxed, the clientele mixed but non-twattish, the food sublime (buffalo burgers FTW!), the weather unobjectionable and apparently there were some bands and shit too. It's difficult to list all the highlights of an incredible weekend, but a few that come to mind are:
- Watching Up in the cinema tent on Friday morning (and Ponyo on the Saturday). Heartwarming kids' films should be a prerequisite of any festival.
- CW Stoneking's New Orleans-style blues was the perfect musical start to the day; he's an excellent raconteur too.
- Freelance Whales mostly lived up to expectations- quite a bit of filler there, but the Generator songs sounded marvellous.
- Wolf Parade's spectacular set. The vocals were a bit low in the mix, but they certainly got the crowd going. GIVE ME! YOUR EYES! and so forth.
- Hearing live renditions of “Float On” and “A Girl Like You” in the space of an hour.
- New Pornographers being the best I've ever seen them. Quality, quality setlist.
- Discovering new bands in the Big Top; Snowmen and Nurses particularly come to mind.
- Monotonix absolutely killing it. Managed to stay near the epicentre throughout, even when they ended up outside the Big Top, playing a bass-drum on top of a stack of recycling bins.
- Iron & Wine's fantastic solo set. No self-indulgent backing band this time round, he finished with “Such Great Heights,” AND he played Freebird (well, some of it.)
- Befriending Edwyn Collins' son, who apparently managed to blag a second meal ticket in the artist canteen by pretending to be one of the New Pornos.
- The late night disco in the enchanted forest, complete with illuminated dance floor. "All That She Wants" -> "Mr. Boombastic" -> "Common People" = MAXIMAL SHAPE-THROWING.
- The subsequent impromptu iPod disco established by my friends on the road back to the campsite. Highlights: an acapella Public Enemy rap-off complete with beatboxing provided by a random American; a rousing rendition of “Starman” and a bunch of randoms joining us to prance about to “Wuthering Heights” at 3 'o clock in the morning.
- Watching some random Jeffrey Lewis fanboy playing Neutral Milk Hotel covers in the woods.
- Increasingly competitive games of Giant Connect 4 in the middle of the forest.
- The last twenty minutes of Pulled Apart By Horses, even though I almost broke my nose when an overzealous fan headbutted me in the face.
- DRUM EYES! The new project of infamous Japanese/Brightonian noisemaker DJ Scotch Egg, it's basically a combination of Japanese psychedelic noise rock and Dan Deacon, and therefore my favourite thing ever.
- Sunday night's secret set at the Tipi. The Felice Brothers and Deer Tick performing old-timey revivalist singalongs? A random guy called Pete resolving his cider surplus by donating copious amounts to me? Uh, hell yes.
- Chatting with friends at 2am under the most star-filled sky I've ever seen, drinking Koppaberg whilst the sounds of Woodpigeon covering TLC's "No Scrubs" and Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free" wafted over from the arena.
In conclusion: everyone should come to EOTR next year, because it's fucking brilliant. THAT IS ALL.
(Photos: John Gleeson)
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