End of the Road 2026

Immediately after walking through the wristband exchange, I bumped straight into friends I’d made the previous year. End of the Road is that sort of festival. On the coach down to the Dorset/Wiltshire border, chatter had been all about the acts people were excited to catch. It’s a weekend for the heads, the grassroots venue regular, the person listening to new releases on Bandcamp every Friday. Setting up camp in beautiful sunshine, we had time to breathe in our familiar surroundings and steel ourselves for the best weekend of the year.

Music on Thursday started in a low-key manner mid-afternoon with the traditional opening of the main Woods and tented Folly stages. For the first time, the Boat also welcomed first-day revellers and was the scene of the day’s highlight. Jennifer Walton played an extraordinary grief-stricken set. Part experimental folk, part hyperpop, her Lana Del Rey-esque vocals settled emotionally between moments which yearned for an elusive hardcore catharsis.

Onto the main stage, and a one-two punch of American acts rounded out the evening. YHWH Nailgun’s combination of high-pitched synths, abrasive treble and confected shouty vocals creates one of the most unique sounds in modern music. Each of their sometimes comically short songs was unmistakably Nailgun, triggering moshes, before vocalist Zack Borzone stood and admired the chaos.

Geese are one of the bands of the moment, and it felt like a coup for EotR to have secured them initially as a secret headliner. The New Yorkers’ control of tempo, exemplified by Cameron Winter’s vocals, had the crowd in the palm of their hands. They’ve been ordained as the voice of American literature for this generation and if they live up to that promise, we’ll all have been glad to have witnessed their debut UK festival headline slot.

Friday was the day I learnt to chill at festivals: having meaningful conversations and listening intently to recommendations from deeply knowledgeable music fans. Musically, it began in the darkness of the Big Top, with the wonderful site across Larmer Tree Gardens now fully open to explore. Wonky Suffolk-coast-via-the-Windmill art-rockers 1000 Rabbits beguiled the early risers with a majestically off-kilter set. Vocalist River Fernandez evokes Sue Tompkins, if time travel had allowed her to be inspired by Isaac Wood. Fernandez’s naturally warming presence welcomes you in, making the raw emotional contortions intimate and the synth-led releases personal.

Next up in the darkness of the tent were the booming experimental drums and electronic pads of Adam Betts, performing under his suitably bombastic Colossal Squid alias. Over in the glorious afternoon sunshine of the Woods stage, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek returned to the festival seven years after appearing as part of a Late Junction takeover. This time, their gorgeous Anatolian psych-folk swirled amongst the main stage crowd and deserved better in return during a tough slot.

Angine de Poitrine have done more for Math than anyone since Al-Khwarizmi. Polka dots abounded in honour of the Quebecois duo and their signature aesthetic. Poignantly, their set took place a week after the passing of famed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who has been cited as a key visual influence. It’s this look and the utterly insane supposed alien language they speak on stage which appear to have catapulted a decent math rock band into viral sensations in the modern age of the algorithm.

Back into the Folly, hazy warm evening vibes pervaded deary’s shoegaze-y dream pop as a sense of calm and peace prevailed. Anything but calm went down over in the Big Top, where Model/Actriz’s incendiary industrial dance rhythms propelled the crowd into a frenzy whilst charismatic singer Cole Haden hopped in and out of the adoring melee with the aura of a superstar.

To round out the first night proper, cleaned-up slacker Mac Demarco headlined the Woods. But it was on the iconic Garden Stage that the weekend’s first all-time classic set took place: eight-piece experimental post-rock collective caroline lived out a dream by headlining their favourite festival stage in the world. The band reminisced about Low’s 2019 set there, agreed by many to be the greatest this festival has witnessed. Through distorted orchestral breakdowns, delicate multi-tonal vocals, and a pulsating rhythm section, caroline pushed Low close. Who doesn’t love a set that ends with two minutes of headbanging violin?!

One of EotR’s greatest features is its secret sets. Not only do you get multiple chances to see acts on the bill, but occasionally a surprise artist might pop up too. Allied with a somewhat deliberate lack of signal, this has cultivated an open and curious atmosphere of discovery. Wherever I go, I end up chatting with people I know and people I don’t. The curation of the site, line-up, and the crowds which have organically developed over 20 years are amazing at opening people (like me) up. EotR is like a giant social music puzzle.

The Piano stage, set in a beautiful clearing, is a key secret set spot. Acts tend to pop up to play three-to-four songs, always including one cover. Given that the first is usually at around 11:30am, it’s a wonderful place to start your day with a late breakfast. The next act is usually announced as the previous one finishes, sometimes creating a wave of excitement that may or may not reach you in time! Second up today was one such act who attracted a vast crowd rushing from all directions as word got out. Irish trad-rockers Madra Salach have been perfectly positioned at the intersection between Lankum and Fontaines D.C., and performed a spine-tingling rendition of sleeper hit ‘The Man Who Seeks Pleasure’. It would turn out to be the first of three sets they’d play on that day!

Over on the Garden, Slovenian folk outfit Širom brought surely the largest set of instruments ever seen at the festival. Rhythms which began on priceless and gorgeous handmade traditional pieces finished with the bashing of dog bowls, throwing of lentils, and that Cafe OTO classic — unwrapping of parcel tape.

Back at the Piano, thredd’s “cold pop” ranged from indietronica akin to early the xx, through synthy trip hop, to the poignant piano-led ‘Funny Girl’. To complete a stellar afternoon, caroline vocalist Jasper Llewellyn stepped up next. This was the secret set I’d heard whispers about and most wanted to catch. His voice was so crisp and pure on debut single ‘Buddhist Teacher’, when not behind the many layers of caroline production. An emotional Mazzy Star cover was a memorable moment of the weekend, dedicated to his partner’s mum who sadly passed away the previous week.

RÓIS and her band stepped onto the Big Top stage, cloaked in mourning veils, and dived straight into an exhilarating set which ranged from traditional caoineadh to drone, via pop-rap and heavy electronica — sometimes all in the same song. The crowd descended into joyous moshing as these sounds amalgamated into an ending split by fast-forward, often comedic, sean-nós vocal breaks.

After another secret set hunt — this time in the bucolic woodland amphitheatre of Talking Heads, where Hayden Thorpe was about to play Wild Beasts songs for the first time in eight years — The Folly was calling for one of the most anticipated sets of the weekend. Texan “dirtgazers” Shallowater had been brought to the UK for the first time. Deliberate slowcore perfection followed, with Blake Skipper’s whispered drawl momentarily tricking the mind into thinking this was another Americana set (upon which EotR was built). The endless swelling into the final release of ‘Angels’ felt restorative to the soul.

Remaining in The Folly, Kiran Leonard — an inspiration for many of the historic late-2010s Windmill scene — was backed by a four-piece band including two members of regular collaborators caroline. The usual fast-paced guitar of his solo sets was amplified by complex arrangements, leaning towards My New Band Believe’s live output, perhaps unsurprisingly given his involvement in that project. Finishing with the sprawling ‘Sights Past’, this felt like a creative force at his peak.

Saturday Garden headliners were Earl Sweatshirt & MIKE, but most of the crowd flocked to the main stage. Pulp? At EotR? This was a huge booking, coinciding with the festival’s 20th anniversary, and one for which Jarvis Cocker had promised something a little different. This proved to be a narrated two-hour career retrospective, beginning with early deep cuts and rarities. The highlight being the live debut of 1993’s lament to Sheffield’s brutalist utopia-turned-sink-estate, ‘Deep Fried in Kelvin’.

My night finished, as it often does, in The Folly. This time not for a secret set, but for a billed show by Salford heavy-psych collective GNOD. Tonight they brought two drummers, four guitarists, a bassist, and an appetite to whip up a storm. One rhythmic wall of noise gradually turned headbanging into moshing for a joyously collective and sweaty end to Saturday night.

The final morning arrived in a hurry. The evening’s headline combination of CMAT and Kurt Vile & The Violators had brought the cowboy hats out in force, as the September sun shone once again.

Shaking Hand opened on the Boat, with a set full of beautifully intentional post-rock. The Manchester three-piece refer to themselves as “Northwest emo”, but their sparse repetition evokes the failed utopian visions of a British suburbia yet to be overrun by motor vehicles. More Skelmersdale than Champaign-Urbana, but in its thoughtfully designed pedestrian-friendly alternative timeline.

During the afternoon at EotR, you sometimes end up having to choose between an alt-country act or another (alt-)country act. Today’s Another Country $$$$ had different intentions and influences, with the Big Top thronging to their heavy experimental electronic beats and hyperpop flourishes rather than bopping in a Stetson. An incredible booking who felt like they’d stumbled on at the wrong 1:15!

A completely different type of dancing was taking place to Sheherazaad’s ethereal vocals and folktronica. Drawing influences from across south and southwest Asian traditional music, texture was provided by a violinist using every piece of that instrument including biting its strings and blowing into its f-holes. The Boat was the perfect stage for such a performance, and its recent addition has given more space for experimental acts to shine. Staying at what is fast becoming a favourite spot, Drook provided a cacophony of hypergaze. Vocalist Liza Grishaeva paced around the stage in a manner akin to the storm building behind her, before unleashing wails of manic energy. Popenhagen favourites Snuggle followed with dreamy minimalism but are perhaps an act to be better enjoyed on record in your bedroom than at the Boat.

Over in the Garden, ØXN produced a characteristically raw set of tragic trad overlaid with experimental doom folk, which exacerbated a melancholic feeling of things coming to a close. As Anna von Hausswolff said in a pre-festival interview, “despair is a temporary feeling, but hope is a permanent one”, and it was to her post-headline slot in the Big Top that we headed full of anticipation of a final release. The Swedish star and her seven-piece band built from gothic darkwave through drone into towering post-rock crescendos. Penultimate track ‘Ugly and Vengeful’ relentlessly grew until tears flowed from my eyes whilst headbanging to synth and sax-led breakdowns. As the band left the stage, the crowd launched into an impromptu rendition of happy birthday to von Hausswolff, who returned to blow kisses. Everywhere I turned, I saw familiar faces, eyes damp with happiness at the feeling of a perfect weekend that had hit an emotional peak right at the end. Hugs upon hugs upon hugs and promises to do it all again in twelve months’ time. Everyone meant it, for this is our special place.

Two more decades please boss man