The good, the bad and the ugly

[SweepingTheNation]

44 minutes ago, wolfamongwolves said:

I think maybe having a program with your ticket price would be a good idea. The Green Man you get a program 

No you don't - it was £12 this year and they never publish the stage times in advance so you have to buy it (unless one of the Settlers posts a photo of them onto the eFests board)

[wolfamongwolves]

21 minutes ago, Yoss said:

You do? I paid £12 for mine.

Apologies when I went there it was with your ticket 

I've never paid for one at Supersonic festival 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by wolfamongwolves

[LowerMead]

22 hours ago, JHad said:

Bads:

• Comparatively low quality and low level of eclecticism in low/mid-range acts.
• Toilets / lack of handwashing facilities.
• Dust - horrid. Needs damping down every couple of hours when it's dry.
• People smoking in crowds (please don't do this).

 

We're in the middle of a period of significant drought with most water companies imposing a hosepipe ban.

I don't think a bit of dust getting kicked up is very far up the list of priorities for fix when you've got bogs with turd mountains in them before a note has been played. 

[wolfamongwolves]

4 minutes ago, SweepingTheNation said:

No you don't - it was £12 this year and they never publish the stage times in advance so you have to buy it (unless one of the Settlers posts a photo of them onto the eFests board)

Apologies if was with the ticket when I was there 

Supersonic festival always given one 

Edited September 6, 2022 by wolfamongwolves

[buddiepaul]

Good

The location.  Just lovely.

Music great as usual.  Some of the highlights for me (chronologically) were Joe and the Shitboys, Pigs x7, James Yorkston (who travelled down from Scotland for the gig, which as much appreciated), Tinariwen, Audiobook, BEAK>, Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan, Taraka, Jake Xerxes Fussel, Hurray for the Riff Raf, Bright Eyes, and finally Yard Act.

Would echo campervan field crew comments , very friendly, helpful and efficient.

The other entertainment around the festival is great and not often recognised.  I usually go with the family (but not this year), so the family entertainment around the Wonderlands is great.  The posties are always fun to watch delivering mail, and I always try to catch the Ringo Music Bingo, which was great fun as usual.

Good to see they kept the fire in the evening/night and that it was well stocked with logs.

Littering around the site was pretty good, and most people did seem to care, but there was still too much.  There were plenty of bins around, so no excuses really.

Bad

Did seem like a lot of chatter around when bands were on.  It is a festival, so catching up with people is part of the fun.  Don't mind at all when you are at the back, but when you have got up to the front, and you get someone next to you not interested in the music, but are discussing niff naff all the way through, it is a little annoying.

In almost unanimous agreement with others that the toilets need some improvement.  They were good in some places, but awful in others.  The pod type urinals worked well in effing forest to take the brunt of the pressure from the portaloos - not sure thy where were not more of them, maybe they would fill up too quickly?  In other places a number of the cubicles seemed to be out of order and maybe contributed to the state of the others.  Agree that it is has never been the same since Andyloos left.

Ugly

Nothing really.  Just hope they don't skimp on much for next year.

[SweepingTheNation]

2 hours ago, RustySpanner said:

They keep putting the cost for the festival up (early bird tickets have gone up £25 from last year), together with the 'we no longer disagree with booking fees so add that to the total cost' and £20 for parking. I know they need to cover losses etc from the covid years, but they really need to start adding to the infrastructure if they want people to keep paying out. I notice that early birds were still available over an hour into sales - the last few years they've sold out in minutes. People will start voting with their feet or go elsewhere if they can't take a dump without having to navigate overflowing bogs every time having had to queue for ages for the privilege.

I wonder how many of those food stalls will still be around next year with fuel/overhead increases?

So you disagree with a festival built around imported acts which uses a lot of lighting-based decorations putting the ticket price up (and I'm not sure it is that much, including booking fee I paid £11 more than last year), but also traders are going to go out of business due to increased costs, and there's no connection whatsoever between those two factors. I very much doubt people are refusing to buy tickets solely because of some of the toilets rather than, say, the contents of every recent news bulletin.

[SweepingTheNation]

On a lighter note, a whole stack of great/five star reviews:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/05/end-of-the-road-review-post-punk-cosmic-jazz-and-weirdo-pop-offer-a-genuine-alternative

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/end-of-the-road-2022-review-pixies-b2159875.html

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/end-of-the-road-festival-review-m58zt0f7s

https://www.ft.com/content/19d7e598-67bb-4bf4-9793-1a86cc09c588

https://www.nme.com/reviews/live/end-of-the-road-festival-2022-review-pixies-bright-eyes-fleet-foxes-3305048 (even if they do think the festival started on Friday)

https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/blogs/uncuts-ultimate-end-of-the-road-festival-2022-round-up-140005/

[5co77ie]

Our 10th one

 

loved it as usual - all good, even the distinct lack of eateries.

Very bad is the Cider Bus taking a long cold look at coming back next year.

 

The changes - what's with all the ruddy kids, once upon this time this festival was almost kid free, now it's got the little tiny noise bags everywhere.

the surprising - not writing a review for the first time in over a decade - who wants to hear what i have to say anyway?

the even more surprising - recognised even when incognito (gonna have to try harder to avoid everyone) - in reality love to meet folks

The second festival this year where I didn't smoke at all - think I may have beaten Mr Nicotine, now just got to learn not to get out of it on Saturdays! 😆

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by 5co77ie

[5co77ie]

...successfully got early bird tickets at tier one prices,  for the first time

 

oh and Tide & Thyme win best caterers of the festival circuit 2022- and yes i tried every single eatery there this year - ask my bank app! I even had to sample all their extra random dishes - salmon bowl, kedgeree, etc

Edited September 6, 2022 by 5co77ie

[jplewes]

What are showers like in normal camping?

Last year and this year we did boutique. They were sort of okay in boutique this year when we got the hang of them (although some being dark/not lit up, having no pressure or the back ones not draining was a bit annoying). Outside of peak times not much of a queue, so not a big grumble but not amazing even if they were more roomy than last year!

The toilets were pretty terrible in boutique though, not able to use on first day/luck of draw a bit if they had just been cleaned. Not outraged but not sure whether I felt it was worth paying for compared to year before. 

[SweepingTheNation]

Tier 1 sold out around 4.45pm, for the record (so me making special plans to be on the ticket page at exactly midday were needless, then) - the tweet says "a record number of tickets" have been sold so presumably there were a lot more early birds allocated than usual, assuming that last year's very quick sellout were what was left after 2021 rollover was accounted for.

[Copperface]

2 hours ago, 5co77ie said:

 

Very bad is the Cider Bus taking a long cold look at coming back next year.

 

🤯 You what? What have they said. One of our group spoke to one of the Temperleys and nothing was mentioned?

Had a serious first night dance frenzy in there on Thursday and we need our pints of rocket fuel medium now and again. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Copperface

[domjon]

5 hours ago, RustySpanner said:

and Highschool who were pretty ropey.

 

 

That was a disappointing set...was really looking forward to it and honestly, they've got a cracking album's worth of tunes there...but fucking hell...zero charisma. Embarrassing the new drummer was a bit of a dick move I thought too

[xxialac]

46 minutes ago, domjon said:

That was a disappointing set...was really looking forward to it and honestly, they've got a cracking album's worth of tunes there...but fucking hell...zero charisma. Embarrassing the new drummer was a bit of a dick move I thought too

I thought exactly the same. Criticising your own band member in front of the audience is twat behaviour - you take collective responsibility as a group.

[domjon]

3 minutes ago, xxialac said:

I thought exactly the same. Criticising your own band member in front of the audience is twat behaviour - you take collective responsibility as a group.

Poor lad looked mortified aswell...and it was the kind of mistake no fucker would have noticed if they'd just played through it anyway tbh

 

 

[domjon]

Getting really fucking depressed now videos are popping up on YouTube ...take me back right now.

[ljsawyer]

1 hour ago, domjon said:

That was a disappointing set...was really looking forward to it and honestly, they've got a cracking album's worth of tunes there...but fucking hell...zero charisma. Embarrassing the new drummer was a bit of a dick move I thought too

Agreed... I got the impression their line-up had been chucked together at the last minute as their usual keyboardist (the lead singer's sister) was missing too.

[benali]

6 hours ago, LowerMead said:

The Ugly

The campervan field is generally pretty quiet at night after the headliners, that's part of the attraction, especially if you have young kids.  If we'd wanted to camp next to a three-chord-wonder banging out tunes on his guitar at 2am we'd have booked in at the Shit Pub Singer's Festival instead. You're not Bob Dylan mate, and no end of trying to sound like him will change that.

We were in Family Camping the other side of the hedge and I was close to shouting over at them to shut up at one point but they stopped. 

[5co77ie]

3 hours ago, Copperface said:

🤯 You what? What have they said. One of our group spoke to one of the Temperleys and nothing was mentioned?

Had a serious first night dance frenzy in there on Thursday and we need our pints of rocket fuel medium now and again. 

I heard they had to get the catering that was there to be nearby, and were originally offered the bit by the Tipi as a completely empty space. They weren’t happy at having less caterers around them - when that’s what anyone wants after their third pint. 

[Sean1234321]

17 hours ago, The Nal said:

 

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Sean1234321

[paulwa]

15 hours ago, SweepingTheNation said:

Tier 1 sold out around 4.45pm, for the record (so me making special plans to be on the ticket page at exactly midday were needless, then) - the tweet says "a record number of tickets" have been sold so presumably there were a lot more early birds allocated than usual, assuming that last year's very quick sellout were what was left after 2021 rollover was accounted for.

I found there were no campervan early birds available, and then there were. It felt like a second release of tickets was made available.

[danmarks]

Tier 2 sold out now too.

Don't know how many are left in total but there is a pay a deposit scheme. If you want to and you can i would suggest going for it sooner rather than later.

[paulwa]

It was all good once they cleaned the loos after Thursday. Music and food excellent as always. 
 

i hope they might consider doing something later on the Talking Heads Stage, for those that want to come down gently, instead of only having the raucous Tipi Tent option. 

[Chip Batch]

I'll catch up on all this in a bit, but unlike others on the first page I didn't find the toilets bad compared to other festivals and last year. Though I'm a man which makes it easier. Some of the queues by the Woods for the cubicles looked long. I felt for people needing to use those.

Good

Food - the burger place (though expensive) and Luardos again in particular.

Music highlights - Joe and the Shitboys, Black Midi, Battles, Keg, Jockstrap, Yard Act, M(h)aol, Lynks, and Kurt Vile.

Weather - dodged a bullet there! The Friday was great despite the mixed forecast and the Sunday night heavy shower and lightning was mercifully short and didn't do much / any damage to the site. Three trips to EOTR and I've probably seen about an hour total of rain 😄

Karaoke in the forest

Bad

There wasn't much I wanted to see on Sunday until later in the evening so that was a bit quiet. Nice time to site around the Garden Stage with a few drinks though. A shame to miss Kurt Vile on the Piano Stage.

Missing comedy stuff I wanted to see as it clashed with bands - which always win.

Boat - the stage needs to be raised higher.

Mobile signal - almost non-existent again for me (on O2, previously EE) on text, calls and data from Thursday until Sunday evening when the site got quieter. Not sure if some sort of temporary booster can be brought in. Probably ruled out on costs.

Ugly

At EOTR? Nah, nothing. What a great place. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scrippit]

Great festival as ever, filled with lots of memorable moments, but the highlight for me was definitely and, slightly surprisingly, Black Midi (I've seen them before and been underwhelmed). Everything about their performance was brilliant, the atmosphere, the sound quality - absolutely epic this year in the Garden - and their relentless playing without a pause. We were all blown away.

Disappointments; the Boat stage where we could never see the band, some of the undercard were frankly mediocre and Pixies, who seemed worn out. But, really, this is picking at straws.