My most vivid festival memories of last year were made at the endearingly awful Reading, the festival equivalent of a Hungry Horse pub. But this year? End of the Road is going to take the top spot.
End of the Road is the kind of festival you might have thought does not exist anymore. It has stages nestled in leafy glades. You can bring your own booze into the actual festival site, and at the bars you’ll find a beer festival’s worth of options. No Carlsberg in sight. Bands play into the small hours. And despite all that, you don’t tend to see groups of teenagers off their faces at 3am.
It’s a festival whose free and easy feel — and light touch security — implies a certain faith in humanity that a read of the news would suggest is unwarranted. Risky even. But End of the Road apparently sailed by without major incident in 2025, 19 years after the festival was first put on in 2006 by festival founder Simon Taffe, who continues to run the show to this day.
Sure, a full Saturday of rain turned the main field into a grim slurry that at one point I saw a small child burying their own shoes in — a turd volcano of sloppy self sabotage. But it was still a festival you might come away from scoring the experience based on how many times you welled up at the sheer vibes of it all. That you need to stay up until 3am to feel like you’ve done more than scratch the surface of the thing isn’t exactly going to pump the lachrymosity brakes either.
End of the Road 2025’s bigger names included Self Esteem, Father John Misty, Viagra Boys, Sharon Van Etten, Caribou and a whole selection box of the “Brixton Windmill” scene acts: Black Country, New Road, Squid and Geordie Greep.
Ivo Graham compered packed comedy sessions headlined by Stewart Lee and Adam Buxton, who also played tracks from his upcoming album backed by half of Metronomy in a fun secret set — one of End of the Road’s thematic backbones.
But one of the real joys of End of the Road is in discovering artists you haven’t seen, or perhaps even heard of before. I’ve tried to stack the deck of my recommendations below with at least some of the show’s less established acts, all of which are worth a listen.
Moonchild Sanelly
There may not have been a stage yet constructed large enough to fit South African Moonchild Sanelly’s outsize personality. And yet even she is at times threatened to have her spotlight nicked by DJ Ashwin Bosman. He sits behind the decks at stage rear, but his real contribution is dancing, bringing Paris is Burning moves to the set (check out the BBC's Glastonbury coverage for evidence). The energy level is off the charts, while you can’t help but walk away with parasitic earworms lodged in your brain, their hooks seeming tailor made for social media. A purist crowd may turn their noses up at the way Moonchild Sanelly basically sings along to a recording, doubling up on a canned vocal track. But to get hung up on that is to miss one of the most fun festival sets going.
- Listen to: Scrambled Eggs
Caribou
Are we just watching someone hit the play button on a MacBook? That may be at the back of your mind during many an electronic or dance music gig. But not so with Caribou, where we’re treated to live electronic drums, a real made-of-fleshy-meat bassist and of course the man himself Dan Snaith. Stage presence may not be his game, but Caribou’s epic and anthemic tunes are hard to beat as a way to top off a day at a festival’s main stage.
- Listen to: Can't Do Without You
Tyler Ballgame
Rhode Island’s Tyler Ballgame might be an actual angel. He glides into his falsetto range like a man made with autotune built into his vocal chords. The clash with a physical presence like Jason Momoa’s schlubby nephew turning up to Christmas dinner in a dressing gown only adds to the appeal. Tyler Ballgame’s 1970s rock inspired earnest ballads are wholesome. And much as each Foo Fighters gig is elevated by Dave Grohl’s sheer force of personality, Tyler Ballgame is simply a good hang.
- Listen to: Got a New Car
C.O.F.F.I.N
Children of Finland Fighting in Norway are not from Finland or Norway. They are an Australian hard rocking four-piece from Sydney. Come to a C.O.F.F.I.N gig and you can expect to be literally barked at by drumming singer Ben Portnoy in the short intervals between the band's snarled-out songs. These often rapid slices of punk are made for a mosh pit, which must be a perennial and more-or-less permanent fixture of the band’s live shows. They gained attention in recent years following a tour supporting Amyl and the Sniffers, but have actually been around for 20 years. C.O.F.F.I.N formed in 2005, as tiny pre-teen school friends.
- Listen to: Cut You Off
Geordie Greep
Former Black Midi frontman Geordie Green is an odd duck. At one point during the set he starts singing Lithuania’s 2006 Eurovision entry We Are the Winners. No context or explanation. But whether we are in on the joke or not, Greep made one of the more interesting albums of 2025 in The New Sound. Played live, these catchy songs about fictional thoroughly unlikeable narrators descend into semi-improvised jazzy breakdowns that remind you what top-tier musicians are capable of. Indulgent? Sure. The whiff of music college meets drama school is here. But when the end result is audacious songwriting twinned with Brazilian grooves and undeniably catchy pop hooks, it's time to embrace it.
- Listen to: Holy, Holy
Aunty Rayzor
Nigerian rapper Aunty Rayzor says End of the Road marked the first time she has played in the UK. She had better come back as she took control of the audience more than just about any other act at End of the Road. The entire crowd ordered into singing along, despite most of Aunty Rayzor’s lyrics being in a language virtually no-one on the floor likely knew. Her songs play out in both English and Yoruba, blending mesmeric repeated choruses with real rapping chops.
- Listen to: Nina
Jake Xerxes Fussell
Folk-blues singer-guitarist Jake Xerxes Fussell is known for his repurposing of old traditional and folk songs. He explains the sourcing of the lyrical content in his albums’ sleeve notes. That’s right, this is a singer-songwriter who comes with lore attached. He plays a worn-into-the-ground Fender Telecaster, as songs that seem grounded in another time tumble effortlessly out of the man.
- Listen to: Jubilee
End of the Road 2026 will take place from September 3rd to the 6th next year, with early bird tickets expected to go on sale at the official website shortly.
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