2018 - Your Thoughts

[rug568]

4 minutes ago, robith said:

AnD wHaT aBoUt ReVeRsE rAcIsM????

 

spare me mate

tbf having a vague problem with a large group of people just because of their social background is pretty sad 

[xxialac]

47 minutes ago, robith said:

AnD wHaT aBoUt ReVeRsE rAcIsM????

 

spare me mate

Ha, very good.

[Llamasausage]

Jees there are a lot of moaners on this thread.  fwiw  I didn't have a problem with anyone doing anything the whole time at any stage, camp site, bar, whatever. I think that compared to some festivals I have been to EOTR was one of the most considerate and pleasant. In fact I found everyone who put up with me talking to them (not during the music of course) incredibly nice and interesting.

[LowerMead]

2 hours ago, robith said:

My first one and I had an absolute blast. I keep wanting to do a big positive and negative list, but tbh I was having so much fun that anything that annoyed me (people obnoxiously taking up a lot of space, chairs, posh people, bad bands) was only a passing irritant, and all the music I saw was bloody brilliant.

Strong chance of this becoming a tradition

My butler said he thought he saw some common people, but I assured him that Security had them shot at the gate.

One of the myriad reasons I favour EOTR over other festivals is that is full of 'nice' people who, in the main, know how to behave in polite company.  I'd rather it were full of 'posh' people than aggressive fighty chavs with their little manbags, ketamined off their face, dropping litter everywhere and generally being obnoxious fuckwits, as is the case at many other festivals these days.

[WM Hall]

you're allowed to be rude about posh people. in fact it should be encouraged

Edited September 7, 2018 by WM Hall

[Amy Lawn]

Shame that people gotta beef in this thread

[The Nal]

6 minutes ago, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

Shame that people gotta beef in this thread

Just cranky because its over I think. You keen for next year?

[robith]

7 minutes ago, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

Shame that people gotta beef in this thread

Over a throw away comment, because I had to camp next to some posh people who spend several hours calling poor people scum

[robith]

Oh another positive that I forgot - I saw lots of disabled people being able to enjoy the festival than any other I've been to, so I presume it's set up well for their needs and it made me happy that clearly the organisers had taken inclusion for people with extra needs seriously. Thumbs up

[Amy Lawn]

1 minute ago, The Nal said:

Just cranky because its over I think. You keen for next year?

Yeah I'm keen, but I might struggle to fit it in, it's a big priority though. Her indoors would like to come, so it takes priority over Green Man at least.

[Suggestives]

18 hours ago, Anotherciderlife said:

Low Anthem- I might get slated for this but I thought they were terrible. Maybe it’d have worked in a small venue but you’re playing a big stage, outdoors at a festival guys! I loved their set on the same stage in 2010 but thought this was painful.

No one should be slated for a perfectly valid opinion, however  as a counter point I though Low Anthem  were absolutely  wonderful - certainly in my top three highlights.

It was a brave choice of material to play at a festival, and I suspect EOTR is probably one of the very few places it could work. 

I'm surprised that so few folk have mentioned them, either positively or negatively.

 

[robith]

Two other things that come to mind. 

 

- I love Titus and I thought it was a top show, but the decision to put it on the big stage was so silly, and it broke my heart how few people turned up (a common experience at a Titus show tbh)

 

- I was really taken aback by how appreciative the crowd of every act. Was wonderful

[SweepingTheNation]

17 minutes ago, robith said:

- I love Titus and I thought it was a top show, but the decision to put it on the big stage was so silly, and it broke my heart how few people turned up (a common experience at a Titus show tbh)

I can only think EOTR, and maybe Patrick, didn't know what form of the band was going to do these European shows when they were booked and the splits planned out, as I know they're going back to full band for their next US jaunt.

[GeordieMartin]

Hi,

Just to be clear, i don't care if someone is posh or not. I only mentioned their names as it was relevant to my post. FWIW, I've been to every festival since it started, apart from one three years ago when i was on the other side of the world. It's by far the best festival and my gripes were just that, gripes. The kids shouting you could hear in the quiet area as it was so bloody loud! These particular Parents just need to be a bit more controlling of their children, that was all.  No festival is ever perfect but this one comes close. There's just tweeks they could make here and there i think, like a kids and family only, raised standing area, a 'completely no noise' camping area, kids or no kids, just a place with zero noise. The 'quiet' area is not all that quiet. I might just go all out and get myself a bell tent to myself all kitted out, then i just need to carry my alcohol in ?

Bring on 2019! I always look forward to the first announcements, around January time

 

 

[xxialac]

26 minutes ago, GeordieMartin said:

Hi,

Just to be clear, i don't care if someone is posh or not. I only mentioned their names as it was relevant to my post. FWIW, I've been to every festival since it started, apart from one three years ago when i was on the other side of the world. It's by far the best festival and my gripes were just that, gripes. The kids shouting you could hear in the quiet area as it was so bloody loud! These particular Parents just need to be a bit more controlling of their children, that was all.  No festival is ever perfect but this one comes close. There's just tweeks they could make here and there i think, like a kids and family only, raised standing area, a 'completely no noise' camping area, kids or no kids, just a place with zero noise. The 'quiet' area is not all that quiet. I might just go all out and get myself a bell tent to myself all kitted out, then i just need to carry my alcohol in ?

Bring on 2019! I always look forward to the first announcements, around January time

 

 

Gotta say agree with the others in here that having chosen to sleep in the Family Camping area, I find it hilarious that you complained about there being early morning children's noise there. 

 

Edited September 7, 2018 by xxialac

[Suggestives]

56 minutes ago, robith said:

- I was really taken aback by how appreciative the crowd of every act. Was wonderful

 

Caroline Spence in the Tipi on Saturday seemed genuinely gobsmacked at how quiet and respectful the audience was. She was delighted to be able to play one of her quieter numbers that she doesn't normally attempt at festivals. I think the very low dickhead quotient is one of my favorite things about EOTR.

[robith]

22 minutes ago, Suggestives said:

 

Caroline Spence in the Tipi on Saturday seemed genuinely gobsmacked at how quiet and respectful the audience was. She was delighted to be able to play one of her quieter numbers that she doesn't normally attempt at festivals. I think the very low dickhead quotient is one of my favorite things about EOTR.

I don't even think it's a dickhead thing to be honest (I can be be a bit of a dickhead truth be told) but more than people really loved the music and had a tremendous respect and appreciation for the acts. Haven't experienced anything like that since the heyday of ATP

[noisenoiseandmorenoise]

Thought I'd put my view out there as someone who last went ten years ago (christ).

I had fears around the size, the talking (which I even found a problem back in 2008), the number of d*ckheads...

Overall though I loved the weekend, the atmosphere, the site is a thing of wonder with so much care and attention in every corner (I could easily spend another week wandering around slightly drunk, finding new areas).

The beer range was superb (loved the different selections/breweries at each bar). I understand the Beavertown complaints but for me they offered the friendliest and quickest service + were the only ones selling decent stuff on Sunday evening. Though it is hard to argue that 6.50 a pint is ever good value, if there is an argument it is for pints of Neck Oil and Lupulus.

The literature and comedy areas are so good I'd happily have them run longer through the day.

The negative

 - The queues/queue management - one of the tipping points for me getting a ticket was the Saturday triple bill of Oh Sees, Hookworms, Snapped Ankles (with added Mark Watson at the end). If I say that I only got to see 1 out of 3 (+no Mark Watson) due to queues, it says a lot for how much I enjoyed the festival that I put that past me pretty quickly. By Sunday I realised that queues did not equal full venues just a shame the stewards didn't manage that.

 - Talking- less of a problem than I feared but still an issue. I had a feeling that Saturday was much busier and also much noisier. I'm no longer used to festivals in England but there appeared to be a lot of (Saturday) day trippers + some weekenders using the festival music as background to a day/weekend away (actually I heard a lot of conversations from people who appeared to have little interest in  music in general let alone specific bands).

 - Suprise Tipi sets - hard to complain about what is essentially a bonus here goes ...truth is, they don't really work (especially Sunday when there is nothing else going on). My experience fell into three categories (i) queue for a band I'd already seen doing stuff I'd already seen (ii) queue for something I'm not interested in along with others who then anyway talk loudly (iii) give up queueing and go to sleep missing something I'd have loved to see (ak/dk and snapped ankles - arse, feck, etc)

 - Sinks - oh for a couple of sink blocks! Do UK festivals not have sinks?! I can't believe the only option for a wash in the morning is to tip a bottle of water over your head.

Anyway fair play if you got through that big block o' text

[benali]

3 hours ago, GeordieMartin said:

Hi,

Just to be clear, i don't care if someone is posh or not. I only mentioned their names as it was relevant to my post. FWIW, I've been to every festival since it started, apart from one three years ago when i was on the other side of the world. It's by far the best festival and my gripes were just that, gripes. The kids shouting you could hear in the quiet area as it was so bloody loud! These particular Parents just need to be a bit more controlling of their children, that was all.  No festival is ever perfect but this one comes close. There's just tweeks they could make here and there i think, like a kids and family only, raised standing area, a 'completely no noise' camping area, kids or no kids, just a place with zero noise. The 'quiet' area is not all that quiet. I might just go all out and get myself a bell tent to myself all kitted out, then i just need to carry my alcohol in ?

Bring on 2019! I always look forward to the first announcements, around January time

 

 

We camped right at the back of Family Camping and it was really quiet, probably slept better than I have at any festival. Certainly didn't hear any kids bombing around at 7am. 

There were even a few people without kids in that area, I guess they just wanted a bit more peace.

[killyourtv]

3 hours ago, Suggestives said:

Caroline Spence in the Tipi on Saturday seemed genuinely gobsmacked at how quiet and respectful the audience was. She was delighted to be able to play one of her quieter numbers that she doesn't normally attempt at festivals. I think the very low dickhead quotient is one of my favorite things about EOTR.

Spot on, mate. Some of the sets this year were magical due to reverent silence such as Caroline, Julien Baker and Haley on the Sunday morning.  You could be very unlucky, even toward the front, but could soon avoid the chat.

[IBee]

A highlight which I've just remembered that can't be ascribed to the organisers was Mars shining so brightly over the Woods stage at night.

[Thruxton Appleby]

I have been every year (except one) since 2009, and while you can never recapture the magic of strolling through the woods at night for the first time, I think this was up there with the best. I get bored quite quickly with the wobble-voiced acoustic singer-songwriter types, and this was the first year that there was always something else to go and see when the going got tough.

My highlights:

This was my 8th IDLES show since I first saw them in Bristol in 2013. Amazing to see them grow in stature and confidence over the years, and they blew the roof off the Big Top (as expected).

Hookworms. Reliably great.

Oh Sees. First time for me, won't be the last.

Yo La Tengo. Perhaps a little over-familiar at EotR, but still great.

AK/DK. Just sorry I couldn't stay for the late show.

New discoveries. Gwenno was magnificent, Plastic Mermaids were sublime, and the Liminanas made me want to move to France.

Food was universally great. Can't believe I hadn't tried the Tibetan before. Love crab, but £9 for a roll? Can't believe they sold many.

Disappointments: 

Titus Andronicus and Jeff Tweedy were both on my must-see list, but without bands behind them they were both totally unsuited to the stages and times they were on. Both mid-afternoon Garden Stage acts when solo.

I found all the headliners massively boring, except Vampire Weekend who I just found irritating. In fact I just realised that, with the exception of Jesus & Mary Chain (who were only headliners by default) I haven't watched a main stage headliner since the Flaming Lips. This is, of course, only a matter of personal taste, and I was grateful that there were some good alternatives this year. 

Always seemed to take ages to get a drink. Perhaps I just went at the wrong times, but after a couple of long waits I gave up and drank what I had brought with me. Thanks to my camper van, that was a lot. 

Not doubting the truth of other people's accounts, but I must admit I was quite surprised to see the comments about the talkers being middle-aged men. The families in the Garden are always annoying, the way they set up camp and ignore the bands (who by their nature are usually quiet and acoustic, at least during the daytime), but in my experience the loudmouths, especially in the Big Top, were mainly younger people. I had to have a word with one particularly obnoxious pair of arseholes who were shouting to each other all the way through Hookworms. I moved away from them, only to have to move twice more because of other groups. I find that particularly weird. If you are sat on the grass in front of an outdoor stage and a band comes on you are not interested in it's a bit off to keep talking while others are trying to listen, but understandable I suppose, it's still a nice place to be. To take yourself into a dark and sweaty Big Top and have to shout to make yourself heard and still carry on a conversation at high volume while totally ignoring the band makes no sense to me. 

The other thing I have to say, and I appreciate others may disagree, is that the theoretically admirable goal of a 50/50 gender split is watering down the festival experience for me, not just at EotR but other festivals as well. I would hate the idea of female acts not being booked because of their gender, and I would even go for a bit of positive discrimination, but the paucity of female acts at headline level has led to the end of many days being a major anticlimax. And a lot of repeats. Third headline for St Vincent in 6 years, and I don't buy early birds anymore for fear of another Newsom shutdown. End of the Road gets a lot of credit for what is essentially quota-filling. There, I've said it. This is an opinion that is widely held but rarely stated, and I fully expect to be shot down.

[The Nal]

Whats a Newsom shutdown?

[benali]

1 minute ago, The Nal said:

Whats a Newsom shutdown?

I believe she demanded that no other bands were on at the same time as her because of any potential soundclash. 

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, Thruxton Appleby said:

The other thing I have to say, and I appreciate others may disagree, is that the theoretically admirable goal of a 50/50 gender split is watering down the festival experience for me, not just at EotR but other festivals as well. I would hate the idea of female acts not being booked because of their gender, and I would even go for a bit of positive discrimination, but the paucity of female acts at headline level has led to the end of many days being a major anticlimax. And a lot of repeats. Third headline for St Vincent in 6 years, and I don't buy early birds anymore for fear of another Newsom shutdown. End of the Road gets a lot of credit for what is essentially quota-filling. There, I've said it. This is an opinion that is widely held but rarely stated, and I fully expect to be shot down.

Dunno whether you mean the full line-up or just the headliners, but either way I do indeed disagree. Strongly. So many good female artistes around, including several of my favourites of the weekend, that it didn't occur to me to question whether any of them were there on merit.

Of the headliners I can't say I was fussed about Feist. But overall I thought it was a better headline line-up than last year's (which was incidentally all-male).