retiredmartin

September 2026. End of the Road Festival. Dorset.

2025 saw a biblical deluge at End of the Road; this year we had the last heatwave of the year and a campervan turned into a sauna as I returned for my daily snooze mid-afternoon.

Still, it gets cold on Cranborne Chase overnight. Mrs RM had packed 3 extra layers for the lads, like they were off to Scout camp or something.

Mum provides sheets of linen, Dad provides 3 sheets with a pithy assessment of all 139 artists on the line-up.

Which they ignored completely, and head for the Helter Skelter.

I can understand why Gen Z want to avoid Boomers when you see what folk my age wear at music festivals.

I spoke to friendly people of all ages over the weekend; perhaps it’s time to write a book about overcoming shyness and judging when to join in over people’s conversation about Black Country New Road side projects.

Sharing a bench with a lovely couple from Nuneaton* while devouring this less than appetising looking but actually sensational Indonesian chicken curry,

we discussed pubgoing in Blackpool (the Saddle) and Coventry, and admired the effort of another festival regular to describe Friday’s acts without resorting to clichéd musical styles and “sounds like” descriptors.

Some of those descriptions had probably been appropriated by Bristol breweries to describe their craft beers.

Last year the Vault City cereal milk sour sold out within a day, this year the Yonder sorbet lasted little longer.

With all cans priced at £7.50, I sensibly pick the strongest, an 8% DIPA from Salisbury’s Dark Revolution.

I’m no doctor, but it made the pain in my shoulder go away. Just saying.

Friday sees great pop music from Silver Gore and Nanush, but my two lads only have ears for Quebec’s Angine de Poitrine.

My two word assessment of pre-festival listens is “jazz rock“, our other anonymous summariser gives us drawings and “papier mache, prog“,

while Wikipedia tells us of “complex microtonal compositions in the style of math rock and experimental rock, and an absurdist image involving oversized papier-mâché masks and black-and-white polka-dotted costumes.“

Judge for yourselves from the video below;

Sensational, and on the big screen I finally caught sight of Matt, transfixed by jazz rock and papier-mâché .

*_{Kylie and Gareth, I think. Or perhaps Greg}