Not many peacocks could handle an 8,000-strong festival audience. But such is the gentle atmosphere of the annual End of the Road music festival — set in the historic Larmer Tree Gardens, north Dorset — that the resident peacocks get on just fine with their weekend visitors.
Last weekend was the seventh outing of the festival and, true to form, the line-up did not have something for everyone’s musical taste. Listening to unfamiliar music was half the joy of the weekend. Still, the curators have a strong musical bias so it is a good thing I enjoy Americana, modern folk, blues and indie pop; otherwise there were the peacocks for entertainment.
Headliners included Grizzly Bear, Beach House and Grandaddy. They certainly sound like an odd family listed here but in the changeable landscape of music today, there’s a trend for bands to choose their names from subjects such as nature and family.
One of the biggest acts was Patti Smith (above), who closed the festival at dusk on Sunday. Her throaty voice was as loud as ever, singing songs from her 1975 debut album Horses. It was equally fervent in her passionate but not preachy call-out to the maligned Russian feminist band, Pussy Riot.
Smith also had the best one-liner of the weekend: ‘I feel like we’re all on LSD but it’s only gonna hit us at 3 a.m.’ This flattered the festival’s tame but tenacious audience, convincing us we were edgier than we really were.
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