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Abigail Morris, singer of The Last Dinner Party, has a burning question: “Isn’t this the best fucking festival in the world?”
It’s Thursday night at End of the Road, the beloved boutique festival that’s been held in the wooded Larmer Tree Gardens, on the border between Dorset and Wiltshire, since 2006. Although her question is rhetorical, and although the party is hardly even in full swing yet, Morris’ suggestion is met with a full-bodied response from the crowd that stretches back along the main Woods Stage.
Emily Eavis would probably like a word with this lot, but End of the Road has long cultivated a reputation as the worst-kept secret on the festival circuit. Despite its cartoonish, dow-nhome aesthetic (epitomized by an art-adorned woodlands walk and handmade-looking signage that looks like it was commissioned by Wes Anderson), the 15,000-capacity weekender has also long outgrown its folky beginnings.
That sense of excitement is matched the following day by reformed indie stalwarts Be Your Own Pet, who, exclaims wildly energetic singer Jemima Pearl, come to us “all the way from Nashville, Tennessee… and 2008”. The band supplement indie sleaze classics ‘Becky’ and ‘Adventure’ with politicised newbies ‘Hand Grenade’ and ‘Big Trouble’. “It feels so good to be back,” beams Pearl.
Fellow ‘00s blogosphere graduate Panda Bear, of Animal Collective fame, teams up with producer Sonic Boom for tedious audiovisual self-indulgence in an inexplicably rammed Big Top, before Marie Davidson puts in the graveyard shift on the same stage, showing them how it’s done. She draws a much smaller crowd, but everyone who came to End of the Road in a bucket hat shows up for her grinding, nihilistic techno, which blows away the cobwebs after Angel Olsen’s spellbinding set on the Garden Stage.
Appropriately, the Missouri-born star performs her wistful Americana under an eerily clear, near-full moon. “This song I wrote last night,” she teases, informing the audience that they’ll hear it first. Expectations duly raised, she then thunders into 2016’s grungy ‘Shut Up, Kiss Me’, her signature song.
That bombshell’s not the last surprise of the weekend. A mystery has hung over the late Saturday evening slot on the main stage, which is revealed to be a secret set from none other than indie superstars Wet Leg. It appears End of the Road does worst-kept secrets: one bloke down the front has brought his own chaise longue for the occasion.
“Hello – we are Oasis,” Rhian Teasdale waves to a crowd that seems to account for every punter on site. The singer apologetically explains she’s under the weather so “can’t give you my all”, but looks visibly thrilled to be back at a “special” festival: she and fellow founding member Hester Chambers formed Wet Leg here back in 2019 – atop the Ferris wheel, of course. What follows is a fittingly freewheeling set from a band with nothing to prove. By the time they inevitably close with ‘Chaise Longue’, kooks are dancing on the one down the front.
It’s a heavy moment, alright, though precedes a feel-good Sunday scorcher that sees Cameron Winter of recent NME cover stars Geese thank the Big Top’s healthily sized crowd for “staying with us in the sweatiest tent in the fucking festival”. The band’s Southern rock pastiche marks a mini ‘70s revival at End of the Road, as Picture Parlour’s Katherine Parlour graces the Folly Stage looking every inch the rock star in dark shades – indoors! – before she evokes the decade’s raw-voiced wailers, ably assisted by Ella Risi’s fabulously histrionic guitar shredding.
There’s more fretboard showboating from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on the Woods Stage, while Ezra Furman hammers out ragged art-punk on the Garden Stage for what, she warns, might be the band’s final show. ‘Body Is Made’ gets a slow-burning makeover that renders its celebration of gender diversity, which Furman delivers through gritted teeth, all the more resonant. “Trans power!” she yells, concluding this magical get-together with a powerful sense of unity.
The best fucking festival in the world? Maybe – but keep it to yourself. This review will self-destruct in five…
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“I received plenty of comments saying it was far too soon to ‘go solo’,” Geese frontman Cameron Winter told NME last year while reflecting on how people initially reacted to his decision to branch out on his own. “Most likely because a lot of folks assume that ‘solo albums’ only happen once a band has passed its peak and that they usually feel like uninspired cash grabs.”
Honestly, everyone is trying to earn a living however they can these days, yet no one expected a Geese side project to generate any real financial payoff in 2024. “Just so you know,” he went on, “my solo album is different: because barely anyone knows my band, I am young and comfortable living with my parents and I have the freedom to follow any ideas that interest me.”
Brooklyn indie followers and former NME cover stars Geese were gaining real momentum when their second album ‘3D Country’ mixed cowboy psychedelia with a jazzy, art-punk energy that had already captured the attention of many UK 6 Music dads back in 2023, but who could have predicted what came next? Geese have become one of the most talked-about bands of 2025 and are expected to dominate multiple end-of-year lists with the ambitious and full-range rock of ‘Getting Killed’. Yet the moment that set the stage for this rise was Winter’s Lou Reed-inspired debut solo record ‘Heavy Metal’.
A handful of late-night US television appearances and a spot on Jools Holland acted as a welcoming doorway for the world to see what this 23-year-old can do far beyond what many twice or three times his age are capable of. Now the sold-out Roundhouse audience made up of indie teens, art school regulars, fans who traveled across Europe and seasoned listeners reacts with a collective breath as a slight opening in the stage curtain reveals the silhouette of Winter seated at a piano. First comes a spark of excitement, then a sudden hush.
There is no flashy social media moment, no chatter overriding the music and almost no sea of raised phones. There is a sincerity to how the night unfolds. The Geese singer barely turns toward the audience. “Turn around!” someone calls out from the balcony at one stage. “Is this not enough for you all?” Winter teases back. For some, maybe it was more than enough. At least four people appear to faint around the warm and crowded Roundhouse while the room stands in absolute focus as Winter moves through the dreamlike storytelling of ‘Try As I May’, the emotional swirl of ‘The Rolling Stones’, the bright lift of ‘Love Takes Miles’ and the sermon-like stomp of ‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’. When he reaches the intense and spiritually charged ‘$0’, even the most skeptical hipster might be convinced that “I’m not kidding, God is actually real”. In that moment, it feels as though we all understand.
The entire performance can be summed up in how ‘Drinking Age’ unfolds. It starts softly with a gentle touch on the keys before erupting into a thunderous attack on the Steinway that could echo into next year, followed by a long, open cry aimed toward the sky. Winter somehow manages to blend something minimal with something enormous, something grounded with something cosmic, a delicate approach that hits with staggering force as he reaches toward ideas of existence, heaven, hell and everything surrounding them.
Winter could recite the phone book and still leave a crowd stunned. He carries the spirit of a post-punk Rufus Wainwright you can play alongside The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, a Gen Z Tom Waits for listeners exhausted by TikTok overload, a new Nick Cave who arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. His voice feels older than his years yet perfectly suited to express the concerns and emotions of his own generation.
We will continue praising Geese endlessly because they deserve it. They are an extraordinary burst of musical creativity that goes far beyond what their lineup would ever imply, and along with Fontaines D.C., they are poised to become one of the decade’s essential bands. Still, tonight offers something quieter and more intimate. Cameron Winter stands completely on his own power, talent and magnetism, proving himself a rising force who can hold an entire room with only his voice, a piano and an entire future waiting for him.
‘Try as I May’
‘Emperor XIII in Shades’
‘The Rolling Stones’
‘Love Takes Miles’
‘Drinking Age’
‘Serious World’
‘Nausicaä (Love Will Be Revealed)’
‘If You Turn Back Now’
‘Vines’
‘Nina + Field of Cops’
‘$0’
‘Take It With You’
‘Cancer of the Skull’
