End of The Road Festival Preview.

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Regrettably, I did an end of the road Boyz II Men pun on last year's review so I'm all out of jokes.

End of The Road festival starts in earnest tomorrow (sort of today, more on that later) and we're going to be there. I've got a feeling, no, not that tonight's going to be a good good night, but more that it's going to rain all weekend. Still, it'll take more than that to dampen our spirits! That's lies actually, if it is persisting down all weekend that will be probably wholeheartedly dampen our spirits but even so, here's a preview.

The lineup is really strong this year. Thankfully (for me at least), EOTR is a rare example of a festival thats lineup gets better with each year that passes. Headliners this year are Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo and Wilco. For a festival with a 10,000 capacity. That's not half bad, is it? As I said in my review of last year's festival, if you like this sort of music (and yeah, you know what I mean by that) I don't think there's any better event.

Bands/Artists of particular interest:

Dylan LeBlanc
The Antlers ('Two' video above)
Felice Brothers
The Low Anthem
Wilco
The Unthanks
Iron & Wine
Phosphorescent
Freelance Whales
The Mountain Goats
Wolf Parade
Modest Mouse
Kath Bloom
Black Mountain
Elliott Brood ('Second Son' video below)
Woodpigeon
Here We Go Magic
The New Pornographers
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Caitlin Rose

Bands/Artists of particular interest not appearing this year:

Okkervil River

As you can see, quite a few big names (and a glaring omission) in there. One thing I did notice whilst looking around the set times page was some guy called 'Daredevil Christopher Wright'. I'll be honest, I've never heard of this man. HOWEVER, if this actually is a real daredevil I'm so in for this. Real talk, if there's a guy doing motorcycle jumps through burning rings of fire in white leather with glamourous assistants and stuff then well, I'll be ecstatic. Why? Well, you can only have so much indie music with a folky slant/beards can't you? Am I the only person to go to festivals, and really enjoy them, yet at various points during the weekend find myself thinking "God. I could do with someone getting their Evel Knievel hustle on right now." Yeah, I probably am. Either way, I'll review this thing upon my return and I'll let you know about Daredevil Christopher Wright too. If he's still alive by then the crazy/bonkers/stuntman/daredevil/nutter.



I haven't fully researched clashes yet. I do know that Modest Mouse will probably run into the The New Pornographers set a little and that Iron & Wine are to clash with Caitlin Rose but, as with life, I will wing this thing as I go. I'm not one to print out times and make a spreadsheet. Oh no, not me. I'd rather not plan anything and then curse my rotten luck come the end of the festival when I realise that, due to my poor planning, I've missed 78% of the bands I wanted to see.

I'll be back early next week with a review and some photos like only Man, Meet Dinosaur can (grainy, out of focus, someone's thumb covering the lens). If you're going, enjoy and stay away from all the artists I'm going to watch, I need some space. If you're not, well, why not? Enjoy B&Q and playing Mario or whatever else you're doing with your time loser.

As for me, apparently Campbell/Lanegan are due to play today (Thursday) in the 'Tipi Tent' so I'm heading over for that. Other than that I think today is mainly reserved for setting up tents, resetting up tents when they fall down and mainly walking around the site going "Oh this is nice isn't it?"

Oh and btw, I'll be live tweeting this thing from my twitter @manmeetdinosaur if you're *that* bored. Follow one, follow all!