An insider's guide on what to see at End of the Road Festival this year
With End of the Road only a few days away, we ask some of the writers, labels, artists and other music industry folk making their way to Dorset this week for their tips on who to see at our favourite British festival.
The four-day event, which is gearing up to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2026, has long been a showcase of what's up-and-coming as much as what's on top. With one of the best undercards you'll find at any European festival this year, it's your last before school starts up again to let loose and get acquainted with the new bands everyone will be talking about in six months time.
The environment itself is also key – it's intimate and magical. Add an attentive and music-obsessed crowd and you have the perfect incubator for new work to land with profound impact. We'll be putting on some of those early discoveries alongside some legends of modern music as part of our famous secret sessions pop-up but here's what some of our friends are also looking forward to.
Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
Recommended by Simon Taffe, End Of The Road Festival founder/director
I first heard Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band back in 2023 and instantly connected with it, we have been trying to get him over for the Festival ever since. I think he is one of the most interesting lyricist’s around the moment up there with David Berman ,Stephen Merritt - what’s not to love about 9 minuet long rambles with lyrics like “If we put our two heads together on this sad sack of feathers/Could we remember what the memory foam forgot?” Genius!
Ryan Davis plays the Woods Stage from 2.15pm on Sunday, 31 August
Self Esteem
Recommended by Adam Buxton, comedian, podcaster and musician
Self Esteem because I saw her starring in Cabaret and she really knows how to put on a show. She was also a source of great emotional comfort to me when my baking dreams disintegrated on Bake Off. I’d also be up for seeing Tropical Fuck Storm because they’re called Tropical Fuck Storm.
Self Esteem headlines the Woods stage from 9.45pm on Saturday, 30 August
Mabe Fratti
Recommended by Jazz Monroe, writer at Pitchfork
The first time I saw Mabe Fratti was at Cafe Oto in 2022, shortly after she released a mysterious album called Se Ve Desde Acquí that I had not paid too much attention to. I expected a quiet evening of pretty cello laments. She quickly disavowed me of that idea. There were a few lengths of ethereal coos and alt-rock guitar scribbles, but for the most part it was violently distorted cello lashes and free-jazz drums and Fratti’s keening, soothsaying voice, and you couldn’t mistake it for anything other than pretty out-there apocalyptic folk song. It felt less like I’d put on my trainers, walked down the road and arrived at a venue in Dalston than suddenly materialised in a strange meeting place having been summoned from the future by my ancient ancestors. I remember thinking about halfway through the set that it might have been the best I’d ever seen.
Not wanting to jinx it I tried to put that sort of idea out of mind, but this had the inverse effect of lending every new reminder of the band’s brilliance the force of a staggering revelation. The more I tried not to be stupidly awestruck, the harder the awe struck when it came back around. What I realised, at this and every subsequent opportunity to see her or her other band, Titanic, was that no matter how much you hope to be delighted and surprised, you can never set the bar too high for a Mabe Fratti gig. She always sets it higher – delightfully, surprisingly high – and this realisation is guaranteed to repeat itself, because when you see her once she never lets you go.
Mabe Fratti performs at the Big Top from 5pm on Sunday, 31 August
Tyler Ballgame
Recommended by Laura Barton, writer, broadcaster & A&R
From Rhode Island via Los Angeles, Tyler’s music carries shades of Roy Orbison, Harry Nilsson, Elvis, but also something distinctively and beautifully his own. Signed late last year to Rough Trade, and having worked on his debut with Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, he’s an effortless songwriter. His live show is simply one of the most joyous things I’ve seen in so long: congregational and life-affirming.
Tyler Ballgame performs on the Garden Stage from 3pm on Saturday, 30 August
Ellie O’Neill
Recommended by Sam Richards, writer for Uncut Magazine
The world is not currently short of folk-adjacent singer-songwriters, but Ellie O’Neill has already served notice that she is willing to push further and cut deeper than most. Performing alone and unhyped at Brighton’s One Church during this year’s Great Escape, her defiantly stark set offered a refreshing antidote to new band fatigue.
Obvious comparisons would be Joni Mitchell (for the casually inventive chord voicings) and Adrianne Lenker (for the economy and directness of the lyrics). It’s very early days – she’s released just two, beautifully poised digital singles so far – but it’s worth experiencing her songs while they are still raw, in both senses of the word.
Ellie O’Neill performs at The Folly from 1.15pm on Friday, 29 August
Sorry
Recommended by Kate Solomon writer at The i, The Guardian and Dazed
The singles Sorry have released over the last year have scratched an itch in my brain that I didn’t even know was bothering me. They’re as art school silly as they are art school serious, beaming in from another timeline with 40s starlet vocals and sci-fi riffs, every other song zigging instead of zagging like its predecessor. When Asha Lorenz sings “I wanna move like that but I only seem to move like this” on the cacophonous ode to dancing that is “Jive”, she perfectly describes how it is to exist in my body at all times - that song has a tempo that is almost impossible to dance to, certainly only for advanced jivers, and I’m obsessed with it. “Waxwing”, with its shoegazryy interpolation of Hey Mickey, is going to sound glorious on the Garden stage too. Their third album, Cosplay, isn’t out till November. Rude - but maybe this set will keep me going until then.
Sorry performs on the Garden stage from 8pm on Sunday, 31 August
Getdown Services
Recommended by Gem Harris from End Of The Road Festival's photography team
Getdown Services are the best band in the UK right now. Maybe even the world. A bold statement and exactly the kind of statement the band themselves would make (I think, anyway). They are sharp and hilarious but most of all they make brilliant, funky, catchy songs. By no means a novelty act, they bring soul and emotion to songs about M&S, quiches and conga lines. Anecdotal and full of bittersweet pathos, the perfect combination of wry humour and jangly keyboards with killer bass lines. Their everyday observations make modern life make sense in the best possible way.
Getdown Services perform at The Folly from 9.45pm on Thursday, 28 August
Aunty Rayzor
Recommended by Jax Coombes, Producer at 6 Music
I’m excited to see what Nigerian rapper Aunty Rayzor will bring to her debut performance on the Boat stage this year. Her latest album Viral Wreckage came out on the the Uganda- based imprint Hakuna Kulala, a label who champion East African and Congolese Electronic Underground artists including the amazing MC Yallah whose set was a stand out from End of the Road last year.
Aunty Rayzor performs at The Boat from 6.30pm on Sunday, 31 August
Black Fondu
Recommended by Paul Bridgewater, Editor at The Line of Best Fit
Against the backdrop of Larmer Tree Gardens – the peacocks, misty sunrises, and Victorian whimsy – I sometimes need to be shaken, punched and even slightly upset by something really fucking loud or angry. End of the Road has been very good to us over the last decade at slipping in some form of noise that splits the crowd down the middle and that's exactly how it should be at a festival. I've seen some splended eardrum-violating sets from Health, CASISDEAD, Yves Tumor, Keeley Forsyth, Mandy Indiana, High Vis and SPRINTS that have caused the 6Music dads to toss out Paddington-like hard stares and tut about 'real instruments' before retreating back to whatever Big Thief side project is happening elsewhere. There's really nothing more beautiful than planting a landmine under one's terra firma and if anyone is gonna be this year's divisive booking then it's Black Fondu.
Hearing Black Fondu for the first time recalls the game changing moment Burial dropped theSouth London Boroughs EP or Kool Keith laid down Dr. Octagonecologyst. He seems to play live almost every single week somewhere in London and when we put him on at our SXSW showcase in Texas earlier this year it felt more like a cathartic ritual than a gig – his physicality is as jarring and confrontational as his music. You can throw words like glitch and hyperpop and metallic and fractured around but the real truth is that the sound of Black Fondu is something that's still evolving by banging together all these touch points. I love seeing the ways that new artists are transforming and reframing genre. Is it experimental grime? It is avant-garde rap? All we know is his name is Reggie and he was born in Acra, lives in Peckham and he might just be the future of music.
Black Fondu plays The Boat from 3.30pm on Saturday, 30 August
Dutch Interior
Recommended by India Shaw from Fat Possum Records
Dutch Interior is the project of six friends who released their latest album, Moneyball, on Fat Possum earlier this year. Split across Los Angeles and Long Beach, the band are over for their first EU tour this summer and ready to soothe sore heads with their blend of alt-country slowcore at their set on the final day of the festival.
The band are proud chameleons, as individual songwriters and also performers. You should check out the initial distorted, visceral version of "Ecig", a pre-album single, compared to the new crisp, elongated alternate version of the track they dropped this week, titled "Ecig (UK version)", just for us. Five of the six members tackle vocals and there’ve been whispers that drummer Hayden will make his debut on the mic at some point. Who knows, seeing as they’re giving special treats to the Brits, maybe their first performance of the UK tour at End Of The Road could be it...
Dutch Interior perform at The Folly from 4pm on Sunday, 31 August
The Orchestra (For Now)
Recommended by Sarah Joy, live agent at ATC
The Orchestra (For Now) represent the best of London's continuing Windmill art rock scene. Having done a string of sold out London shows, they've been building a solid cult following and released their anticipated debut EP Plan 75 in March - a little snapshot of what's to come from this talented ensemble. With seven on stage, they are nearing an orchestra themselves with cellos, violins, guitars and more. Armed with a high level of intensity, musicianship and sharp lyrics, they are the perfect End of the Road early discovery.
The Orchestra (For Now) perform on the Garden Stage from 4.30pm on Friday, 29 August
End of the Road 2025 is now sold out but you can buy and sell tickets via the festival's official resale partner Twickets, with prices capped at face value.
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