End Of The Road 2010 Sunday
Wilco, Singing Adams, Smoke Fairies, Dylan LeBlanc, Django Django and more
Dorset, Larmer Tree Gardens
Article written by
Various Writers - Oct 5, 2010
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Jeff Tweedy: Wilco
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The third and final day is upon us; usually at this point it would be time to pay the marvellous Scandinavian Cafe a visit for a spot of Sunday brunch. Alas, it seems the aforementioned establishment has been replaced this year by a liquorice stall. Actually, there seems to be an unhealthy encroachment of the L word into many areas of the festival site in 2010. As an Ice-cream flavour, it’s just about tolerable, but that odd flirtation aside, Liquorice and Festivals are simply not compatible. Like Bono and Income Tax.
A quick peep into the Tipi Tent sees Newcastle’s Lanterns on the Lake playing to a large crowd and no doubt recruiting more fans with their intense and atmospheric folk-rock. It’s just a pity I arrived too late to be anywhere but the periphery of the room, thus ensuring most of what’s emitted from the stage is lost in a fug of chit-chat and bar orders.
The sound is perfect for The Antlers on the Main Stage; it’s unfortunate, then, that the better moments resemble weak, Grizzly Bear outtakes. Their morose concept album Hospice has garnered critical praise on both sides of the Atlantic but on this showing it’s difficult to see why. There didn’t appear to be any gusto or personality in the performance save for ‘Bear’, the stand-out track on the album and best here by a country mile.
Django Django in comparison are simply brilliant and strong candidates for the best act to perform in the Big Top all weekend. Donning Hawaiian shirts and what appear to be electronic leis, they’re an enticing mix of IT geek and unabashed beach party animal. You’d be hard-pressed finding catchier songs than ‘Storm’ and ‘WOR’ across this site today, with their irresistible surf guitar riffs, harmonious chanting and tribal drumming. Exactly what you need on the final afternoon of a festival – a band to wash away the hangover, replenish your smile, and get the party started again. Great stuff (and just as good on record).
Next up is The Felice Brothers on the Main Stage. They’re obviously devotees of The Basement Tapes but have unfortunately made the iconography, rather than the tunes, their template for entering music folklore. The songs they do possess are bellowed out in the most unpleasant, out-of-tune manner and only serve to highlight their infatuation with image over content. ‘Frankie’s Gun’ is a fine enough song on record. It’s an atrocity in the Garden.
It’s definitely time for more food and the delicious offerings at the Mexican stall provide much needed comfort. After that, there’s just enough time to catch half of Yuck’s set in the Big Top. Boasting the largest on-site afro and some of the loudest guitars of the festival, there’s plenty to enjoy both musically and visually with this London four-piece. The shoegaze pop & distortion-laced freak outs only occasionally drift into dull cul-de-sacs; as for the most part this is thrilling, post-burrito entertainment.
Dylan LeBlanc
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The temperature’s plummeting so it’s time for a pancake and a warm cider before venturing to the Main Stage one last time for headliners Wilco. It’s been, to quote Jeff Tweedy’s first words tonight “a very, very, very nice festival”, and thankfully his band provides EOTR 2010 with a send-off that befits this sentiment perfectly. It’s not that the sublime ‘I Am Trying To Break Your Heart’ is suddenly transformed into “nice”, feel-good pop; it’s just as far as the moods of Mr Tweedy go, he’s in an astonishingly good one and this manifests itself into a performance of not only excellent musicianship but great warmth too. The set effortlessly blends the epics, the rockers and the lovelorn ballads into one delightful, career-spanning treat, with latest album gem ‘I’ll Fight’ being one of the many highlights. Arguably the most renowned headliner this festival has ever had, Wilco ensure there’s an enthralling end to another wonderful weekend at Larmer Tree Gardens.(by Pete W)
The line up for the festival hasn’t been quite as good as in previous years but this sunny Sunday is musically the strongest day. Dylan LeBlanc is a teenager from Louisiana and a shy one at that, the way he restricts conversation to a polite "hello" at first and sings with closed eyes. Having heard him compared to Townes Van Zandt, I was expecting something dark and mournful but he was positively jaunty, the product more of beery dancehalls than sedate folk clubs perhaps. And on this sunny afternoon, as he gets his groove on, he blossoms like a magnolia on a Shreveport street. The perfect way to blow away any hangover cobwebs at the start of the last day.
Smoke Fairies: Kaf
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The Smoke Fairies don't seem used to the sun; their album cover has them ghost-like in some sempiternal gloom and here Cat has to apologise for playing dark-themed songs in bikini weather. But the sound is good; even better, in fact, with their new band all around them, adding tone and shade to their drawling blues and English folk tales. And their glacial harmonies are spectral and precise, leaving you tingling like someone just walked over your grave this warm afternoon.
The guy who won the competition to introduce Singing Adams (note: no definitive article) talks a lot about the Broken Family Band but I forget about that band pretty quickly as soon as this one gets going. Sure, there’s the singing, the songwriting and the cheeky banter of Steven J Adams but the band don’t invite any comparisons with Adams’ previous compatriots: Matt Ashton is a much more introspective and darker guitarist than Jay Williams, Michael Wood is nothing like the frequently sedentary Gavin Johnson and Melinda Bronstein is a world away from Micky Roman, in every respect. The songs are new (although 10 days later at the Windmill they’ll play ‘St Thomas’ from The Singing Adams album, plus a brilliant cover of Herman Düne’s ‘Going To Everglades’), but they’re fast, snappy and you get the feeling that there are layers to them so far unexplored, which makes you want to hear them again – especially the one that sounds like an Adams rap. The tent is absolutely crammed, the BFB audience clearly having transferred its affections to the new boys, and they show their love in long waves of applause. The one oddity is the way Singing Adams hang about just offstage for the inevitable encore – a little presumptuous for your fourth gig, chaps?!
Singing Adams
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I’m walking past the Local tent a little later and an almost physical force drags me in to hear Les Shelleys. They’re Tom Brousseau and Angela Correa from Los Angeles (Brousseau’s already released albums under his own name), whose close harmony singing is as much of a joy to hear as it clearly is to sing, With smile-wreathed faces the two sing as if their voices are the curling strands of a DNA double helix and, unlike some of the other technically good singers we hear this weekend, they have the indie-folk songs that provide substance to their style, particularly a breathtaking version of Nick Lowe’s ‘I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass’.
Mountain Man are (pauses for breath) Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath, from Bennington, Vermont. They’re clearly not men, nor not built for trapping their own dinner up a hillside (anything but; these well-spoken gels went to a very fine liberal arts college) but what they do have is voices that produce the most honeyed harmonies, just like a female Fleet Foxes. Occasionally they’ll bring out a guitar but mainly they’ll just start singing together, maybe their own old-timey compositions or maybe an Ink Spots cover. In between songs there’s much laughter, as they clearly enjoy what they do, as do the audience – which we decide to leave by about the halfway mark, figuring we’ve heard the full range of what they do. It’s good, but not worth missing out on a burrito for.
Smoke Fairies: Jessica
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I have to admit that jazz generally leaves me cold but The London Snorkelling Team employ the “spoonful of sugar” principle to sweeten the experience, building a whole comedy routine around their short pieces of electronica-enhanced jazz. I won’t spoil it for you but the mix of visual comedy and brassy accompaniment is brilliant in its simplicity and the marriage of sight gags to complex music. Why Hollywood studios don’t sign them up to soundtrack their animated movies rather than Phucking Phil Collins and El-tuneless John is a mystery.
And that’s it. The end of the festival seems to mark the end of the summer, which the cold night gale seems to reinforce. I watch the brilliant Wilco (review elsewhere on this page) and then it’s the three hour cross-country from Arcadia back to Gotham, fuelled by warm memories of an excellent festival weekend and an even better ice-cream. (by Ged M)
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