So who nailed it and who stank for you?

[paulwa]

Nailed it: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, White Denim, Treefight For Sunlight, Black Angels

Stank: Micah P Hinson, The Fall (both singers drunk, or at least I think so)

[HastingsBoy]

Nailed it: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, White Denim, Treefight For Sunlight, Black Angels

Stank: Micah P Hinson, The Fall (both singers drunk, or at least I think so)

[ijabz]

Nailed it: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, White Denim, Treefight For Sunlight, Black Angels

Stank: Micah P Hinson, The Fall (both singers drunk, or at least I think so)

[SweepingTheNation]

In chronological order:

Tune-Yards

HEALTH

The Walkmen

Allo Darlin'

Dan Mangan

Bob Log III

Other Lives

Wild Beasts

Emmy The Great

Leisure Society

Big Deal

Laura Marling

Josh T Pearson

Brakes

Thought it was a bit off for Okkervil River to basically play nearly the same set as two years ago, right down to the solo A Stone and finishing with Unless It's Kicks rather than the traditional Westfall.

Edited September 5, 2011 by SweepingTheNation

[Fareham Grecian]

Nailed it: Walkmen, Dan Mangan, Allo Darlin (who knew they were that good live??), Unthanks (when did they ever not nail it?, Leisure Society (see Unthanks, Laura Marling, Kathryn Calder. Honourable mention to Lykke Li for being about 48 times better than I expected. And to John Grant, who was superb despite the rather (to me)annoying electronic keyboard - what a lovely man!

Stank: in all honestly, no-one I saw. Glad to see someone else mentioning Caitlin Rose though, pretty tedious.

[ljsawyer]

Top 5 for me:

Megafaun - what a BAND!

Woods - see above

M. Ward

Josh T. Pearson

Mogwai

Honourable mentions to Gordon Gano & The Ryans and Doug Paisley who I thought were both brilliant after seeing them on a whim. Especially Gano doing 'Blister in the Sun'.

Stank: tUnE-yArDs, Found (too quiet, could barely hear the electronics), Holy Crutches

Wooden Shjips were a bit disappointing as well but other than that everyone else was great!

[ljsawyer]

The Mountaineering Club

[ijabz]

Didn't they have a load of technical problems though?

[Infinite Jest]

Exceeded expectations:

Wild Beasts (really good live)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (I'd heard they were bad live. They aren't. Good guest spot from Gordan Gano as well)

Tune-Yards

Black Angels (no idea what they sounded like before I saw them, captivated)

Gordan Gano (he was having a lot of fun, in spite of having a small crowd. I liked the mix of new stuff with a few old classics thrown in - though I wish he'd mine the darker, less well-known parts of the Violent Femmes catalogue - stuff like Never Tell would go down well at EoTR).

Leisure Society

Gruff Rhys: very fun show.

Beirut: only saw half show, but seemed very good.

Met Expectations:

Midlake (very good show, but that's what I expected. I was a bit tired and didn't quite get into it).

Allo Darlin' (again, a good show but not hugely better than the other two times I've seen them)

Brakes (as above)

Mogwai (as above - seen them play basically this set at three festivals this year, so the novelty's wearing off. They didn't get much of a crowd reaction for '..Fear Satan' which surprised me).

John Grant

Other Lives (Ben, I'm sorry for not having them under 'Exceeded' - they were very good but I wouldn't say they're brilliant. Yet).

Tinariwen: thought this would be a festival highlight. It was good, but not amazing.

Disappointed:

Walkmen (maybe me rather than them; I just didn't feel like there was much energy there. They made me realise I really like the songs, though).

Phosphorescent (I have a signed CD from last year, and I was looking forward to it, but again it never really grabbed me - opening with 5 minutes of mucking about with tape loops didn't help).

Best Coast: I like the idea of Best Coast, but they don't really have the songs yet.

[paulwa]

Agreed about Gruff Rhys - fantastic rapport with the crowd, lots of dry wit and some great tunes to boot!

[Nonlondoner]

Gruff Rhys has always been a festival legend. Aeroplane seats, TV news desks, dog costumes, 20 minute techno wig-outs, spaceman outfits and army tanks playing dance music. Just some of the delights he's brought to Festivals over the years. A genius.

[geofelgie]

nailed it:

Admiral fallow

caitlin rose (different strokes i guess)

Dry the river

Bo ningen (only went in for a giggle but got converted - live ONLY am not buying a record!)

Treefight for Sunlight

Dan Mangan (my favourite act of the weekend not called john Grant)

Diagrams

Phosphorescent (my only gripe would be that he didn't do enough loopy stuff!)

Other lives

Okkervil river

Lightning Dust

Slow down molasses (despite appalling sound quality - fortunately I was close enough to hear their monitors)

Kathryn Calder

Leisure Society (especially the Bouncing Ben in the crowd)

Doug Paisley (never heard a better solo-with-an-acoustic-guitar set)

John Grant

Stank

Holy Crutches late sat night in the Tipi was one of the worse car crashes I've ever seen - don't know what their actual set was like cos I steered well clear.

Found were profoundly disappointing having loved the album.

The sound guy in the Tipi.

[AndyfromBrackley]

Nailed it for me

Tune-Yards, my must see, and not disappointed

Lykke-Li, great show

Okkervil River

Wild Beasts, now a real professional outfit.

I have now downloaded as a result of the weekend...

Other Lives, let's hope the comment about preferring the UK to the US keeps them here, and touring

Discovery of the weekend

Dry The River (the new Hope of the States?) see you at the Hare & Hounds on the 19th?

Lanterns on the Lake. Start quiet, go loud, go really quiet, and finish really loud. the tried and tested shoe-gazey formula, but kinda worked with the perfect vocals.

Timber Timbre...he/they were good

Honourable mention to The Leisure Society, i'd sort of avoided them, but mightily impressed, and also downloaded.

Also Josh T. Absolutely not what I was expecting with the between song repartee.

Have to agree with the sound guy in the Tipi that stank! Maybe he was getting his wires crossed.

[Unihammer]

Gruff Rhys has always been a festival legend. Aeroplane seats, TV news desks, dog costumes, 20 minute techno wig-outs, spaceman outfits and army tanks playing dance music. Just some of the delights he's brought to Festivals over the years. A genius.

[Maoster]

Quick question. Was Lisa Gen with him and did he play Skylon. I went to MFF this year and he missed Skylon out, which was a disappointment. Great set otherwise.

[sadwitch]

Nailed:

Allo Darlin'. See them quite a lot but they were on form and happy to be there. We danced.

M Ward. Brilliant.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. It was what I wanted their set to be like.

Leisure Society. Good festival set.

Bob Log III of course.

Josh T Pearson. Had completely forgotten I'd seen him before! Good times in the drizzle.

Futur Primatif. Nice though not really my thing.

Joanna Newsom. I listen to her records a lot so I enjoyed. It was nice to be in an enthusiastic crowd too. I was SO f**kING COLD though.

Blu-Tacked:

Okkervil River 1st half was a bit uninspiring and it felt like half the crowd was there mostly because they didn't like Mogwai. It picked up though.

Timber Timbre. Wasn't in the mood at lunchtime really. Not their fault.

Darren Hanlon. I should like more than I did. I found his playing didn't hold my attention and I had to leave before the end.

Selfishly glad Micah was apparently crap as we arrived too late to see for ourselves!

[magick melvin]

Allo Darlin' rocked the disco. I love a band that is loving it as much as me and they were loving it. A joy.

Caitlin Rose was disappointing this year. She and the band couldn't wait to get off stage. Too much touring? And no new songs.

[binaryRooster]

Has no one mentioned She keeps bees yet? i thought they were one of the finds of the festival - that was an absolutely killer set.

So...Bob Log, Kathryn Calder, Joanna Newsom, Tuneyards, and Best Coast for the nailed it section.

[benrio1]

nailed it:

John Grant - especially with the addition of the violinist (whose name I forget), who arranged and played the string bits fom his album, veering his set away from the (beautifully minimal) one Ive seen several times over the last year.

Megafun - my new favourite band. shucks

Timber Timbre, The Black Angels, James Yorkston all soared in my estimation. Drum Eyes were scary but good, too.

no-one stank...but I had high hopes for a few bands, who in my eyes didnt deliver. Step forward The Fall, Wooden Shijps, Sam Amidon & Allo Darlin'. good ideas stretched to breaking point.

i dont want to finish on a low though...it was a truly brilliant weekend. even the rain didnt give us mud, which was nice.

[ljsawyer]

Megafun - my new favourite band. shucks

[puppyfeat]

My first time at EOTR and without any doubt the best fest I've ever been to for music. These guys were the ones who made it a great weekend and why I'll probably be going back again.... in the order I saw them:

Best Coast - fun but sadly I only saw their last 3 songs

tUnE-yArDs - the girl's a genius, love her

Health - terrific avant rock and great hair swirling!

Lykke Li - very impressive, I loved how they worked The Knife's Silent Shout in towards the end

Bob Log III - musically not very interesting - he can sure play though - but very entertaining and memorable for bouncing 4 women on his legs while playing, the lucky fella!

Phosphorescent- I don't understand the negative comments above - he was brilliant, and cool as f**k

Wooden Shjips - someone above thought they were 'disappointing'... WTF?! are you deaf? - they were AWESOME!

The Black Angels - a name like theirs takes some living up to, but they did it - hard rock heaven

Mogwai - fantastic, so much more powerful than they were at Brixton earlier this year

Megafaun - quite possibly the best band of the weekend - certainly the most versatile and the most fun

Big Deal - sweet couple, nice tunes (if not much variety)

Kurt Vile - a fine set based on his great album - and a surprise stormin' version of Bruce's Downbound Train to finish off with

Josh T Pearson - great gags, great songs, and a very amusing interview in the programme!

Joanna Newsom - beautiful and brilliant, both she and her music (woulda been so much nicer if she'd been on earlier in the sunshine though)

I briefly caught a few acts which didn't do much for me - such as Midlake, Austra, M Ward, Willy Mason and Brakes - but the only real disappointment were The Fall, who must be the musical equivalent of being harangued by some old pisshead down the pub - extremely tiresome and smelly.

[Infinite Jest]

nailed it:

caitlin rose (different strokes i guess)

Phosphorescent (my only gripe would be that he didn't do enough loopy stuff!)

[tomtrumps]

Loved Other Lives, thanks to Ben I think for the recommendation on here.

Enjoyed Dry the River, The Walkmen, Bob Log, Midlake, the Kate Bush cover from a distance, Laura Marling was ok in the background and thought John Grant stole the show at the death.

Hated Joanna Newsom (and her evil festival takeover) and The Fall, thought Jolie Holland and Okkervil River were distinctly meh, White Denim were dull, and Wild Beasts were ok, but nothing more much to my disappointment. I really don't like the Big Top but think the Garden Stage is still magical.

[benrio1]

Ha! lj, i spent all my money on bhatti wraps, hot cider and posters. fair play to my fellow megafun fan though...unless he was just enthralled by the drummers wife

puppyfeat, I'm not deaf...and a lot of what Wooden Shijps did was immense. Just feel they could expand , a little, on what they do....even gnarly old dudes playing space-rock-drone have some room for improvement

Edited September 5, 2011 by benrio1

[MattL80]

Midlake were my highlight followed by John Grant, Laura Marling, Megafaun, Black Angels, Beirut.

Other Lives were my new find of the weekend.

Phospherescent certainly weren't the same without the full band. Last year their set was one of my bands of the weekend. Likewise Micah P Hinson was disapointing with just strings.

Edited September 5, 2011 by MattL80