Saturday 16/09/06, Day 2 @ End Of The Road Festival, Lamer Tree Gardens, Wiltshire

With Friday seen by many as simply the introduction, the weekend kicks off proper on Saturday morning. The games of ‘Viking Kubb’ (a game popular in Sweden, apparently) and football have kicked off, Diablo’s and juggling sticks are hurtling through the air in the circus area, and The Memory Band are beginning in the tent. Soothing the ears with melodies of love and life, the band’s quintessential folk isn’t going to change your life. However, music that attempts to is often crap anyway, so this is no bad thing. New single ‘Why’ shows off the newly recruited violinists obvious talents, whilst the cover of Yo La Tengo’s cover of Sandy Denny’s ‘By The Time It Gets Dark’ closes the performance perfectly.

There’s a Swedish influence on the whole festival, so off we wander to catch the first musical example of it, El Perro Del Mar. Strangely translated into ‘the dog from the sea’, the performance is a beautiful demonstration of what the Pipettes may sound like when asleep. The songs are drenched in Motown and Spector, with tunes such as ‘This Loneliness’ showing that a bed of sound can be far more effective than the big and boisterous wall of sound commonplace in similarly inspired artists. The undeniable highlight is the finishing song ‘God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)’, an instantly classic melody whispered through the backing bands perfect accompaniment of short sharp vocal injections and flowing sea of orchestration, which leaves Gigwise desperate for more. 

Next up are My Latest Novel, who plough through their debut album ‘Wolves’ and show that the Scots can also keep up this high standard of music. The sharp edges of the album are removed without losing its potency, resulting in a more fitting sound for a sunny afternoon in a garden. It’s yet another faultless performance, but perhaps more varied than others from the weekend. ‘The Hope Edition’ creeps along delightfully, while ‘When We Were Wolves’ hunts you down with its paranoid undercurrent. Suddenly the peacocks are staring at us with a little more intent than before, and we start to fear their inevitable attack. Thankfully they didn’t, but only because My Latest Novel secretly told them not to. 

Feeling a bit annoyed to have missed The Boy Least Likely To (apparently they were very good), Gigwise attempt to make up for it with a rewarding but exhausting game of football with the band's mascots. As surreal as watching 8 foot creatures battle it out against each other is, we had to pull ourselves away to catch Superthriller over on the main stage. Hand picked by Beck to support him on his latest UK tour, from tonight’s performance it’s not hard to see why the insane group were such a hit. With boundless energy and fantastic tunes, Gigwise almost feels rude as we sit nursing our sore legs. It’s not long, however, before we’re dancing at the front with the best of them to family hits such as ‘Superthriller Mother****er’, or shouting along to lines regarding Heather Mills’ missing leg. Offensive to some, pure entertainment to others.