{"id":762922,"date":"2026-09-07T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762922\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:58:10","slug":"end-of-the-road-festival-review-pulp-and-cmat-lead-indie-landmarks-joyous-birthday-party-end-of-the-road-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/762922\/","title":{"rendered":"End of the Road festival review \u2013 Pulp and CMAT lead indie landmark\u2019s joyous birthday party | End of the Road festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a celebratory feeling in the air at End of the Road festival<\/a> this year as it turns 20. The piano stage has been turned into a giant birthday cake with candles on top, one man is dressed as a toilet to commemorate the porcelain anniversary, and Jarvis Cocker leads a spirited singalong of Happy Birthday while wishing for 20 more years.<\/p>\n

Retaining a core identity while also expanding and evolving has been key to that longevity. While early days were centred more on alt-folk and Americana, EOTR is now a genre-hopping powerhouse, blending everything from pop fun to noisy experimentation via global grooves, and with an equal focus on the familiar and the unknown.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday \u2026 Jarvis Cocker performs with Pulp. Photograph: Burak \u00c7\u0131ng\u0131<\/p>\n

Representing the former, Geese<\/a> manage to pull in record audience attendance levels for their Thursday headliner show, while Pulp use theirs to announce a hiatus and they bow out with a set of deep, deep cuts and B-sides (including a beautifully sprawling and pulsing live debut of Deep Fried in Kelvin). It could have backfired spectacularly \u2013 with not even a nod to a hit song until almost an hour in \u2013 but while it was steadfastly uncompromising it was also a joyous rummage through the archive of true art-pop pioneers.<\/p>\n

CMAT also announces she won\u2019t be playing the UK for two years during her headline set, which wraps up with the singer shirtless and deep in the audience for some collective cathartic screaming to say goodbye. Angine de Poitrine\u2019s microtonal math-rock, as though styled by Alejandro Jodorowsky on a B-movie budget, may be still firmly in the leftfield camp but they are on the main stage after their huge breakthrough year, turning their frantic and frenetic instrumental workouts into an oddly big-crowd-friendly routine.<\/p>\n

Beyond the heavy hitters, the lineup has a deeply impressive wingspan. Factory Floor are in phenomenal form as they knock out a pummeling set of industrial electro-techno. Experimental electronic duo Another Country $$$ span everything from drum\u2019n\u2019bass to post-rock, while Cleo Reed\u2019s queer country-soul (cuntry, as she calls it) is playful and sweet but also angry and impassioned. James K creates swirling electronic sounds that are so richly layered, dynamic and immersive, it\u2019s like being pulled in and out of a dream state. Model\/Actriz unleash a ferocious noise that manages to be as heavy as it is groove-locked \u2013 almost recalling a sweet spot between Perfume Genius and Gilla Band \u2013 as well as theatrical, with vocalist Cole Haden either doing endless ballet twirls or down in the audience whipping them into a frenzied state. But what\u2019s especially infectious and energising at End of the Road is how everything, big or small, weird or poppy, is proportionally and enthusiastically attended. Everything is lapped up with the same appetite and gusto.<\/p>\n

Twenty years on from its inception, the festival may be hitting a major milestone and delivering a vintage year, but it exists as a crowning achievement in a wider context. A medium-sized event (15,000 capacity) free of big corporate sponsors as money from brands and multinationals pours into identity-less festivals elsewhere, this is a rare yet deserved success story, testament to the enduring power and beauty of independent music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is a celebratory feeling in the air at End of the Road festival this year as it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}