Punks and frocks and rock and roll at Endorset

Best laid plans, etc… when I last posted here I was preparing to spend my Friday with a few thousand likeminded festivalgoers in a field on a farm near the quaintly named Dorset village of Sixpenny Handley for the first night of Endorse It In Dorset.

Well, a double dose of bad luck involving a sick van and a sick driver put paid to that, so Friday was instead spent at home in front of the tv when we could have been enjoying grizzled punks the UK Subs headline the Desmond Dekker stage.

Happily, by Saturday, things were looking a lot healthier both with the van and our driver/photographer Jon, so we wasted no time firing up the camper and roaring westwards.

Arriving a day late, we were sent by stewards in the vague direction of a stubbly field housing a mixture of cars, tents and campers – and a lot of free space. No ‘12 by 12’ pitches here – we were left to our own devices and could take up as much room as we wanted. As we set up, we realised that we were also surrounded by artists – with Citizen Fish camped just upfield and the Ace Trio our near neighbours. No pretensions here, everyone just gets on with enjoying the festie.

This little corner of Dorset was very pretty, but quite isolated, and modern fripperies like mobile signals haven’t quite reached here yet. Without the use of my beloved iPhone, it felt like stepping back in time, back to the days of notes left on festival meeting points in the hope that somehow you’ll find your friends.

Endorset (as we fondly refer to this festival) had a strong retro vibe going on anyway. Most of the bands were either original punks or playing music rooted in this era, with a fair smattering of rock and roll, ska and dub, and even a bit of jazz.

And it wasn’t just the lack of communications and vintage music that took me back to a simpler time – Endorset is a proper old-fashioned festival, the sort we used to enjoy before corporate sponsorship and cable tv took over and festivals became a massive industry in the UK. Prices for food and drink were reasonable, the merchandise stalls suited all pockets, and you could even pick up (used) duvets and blankets for a couple of quid if you were feeling the cold at night.

The kids’ area had a bunch of daytime activities available for free, including circus skills and junior kung fu, and we watched a great chainsaw sculpture act. We didn’t spend too much time there this year, with Vincent preferring to head to the edge of the site and find the Pixie Chill encampment, with its circle of yurts, café and performance area – but mainly to have a game of chess, which he discovered here for the first time a year ago. Unfortunately, the chess sets we could find were missing several pieces, so we improvised. Not that it made much difference to the outcome – V tends to bend the rules to suit himself anyway.

It was time to catch some bands. We found ageing New Wavers the Members playing on the main stage, and to my surprise and delight Jon noticed that they were featuring the legendary Rat Scabies (formerly of the Damned) on drums. They rattled through their catalogue of hits, most of which I realised I still remembered from my childhood, despite having all but forgotten this band until now. I flashed back to backstage at the Reading Festival in 1979, and my Mum, calling Members singer Nicky Tesco “a horrible little man” to his face, for reasons that now escape me. I started giggling like an idiot at this thought, to the bemusement of those around me. Who’d have thought I’d end watching the same band at another festival more than 30 years later? Time hadn’t been kind to Mr Tesco, though and if it wasn’t for the music, I’d never have recognised him. Still, not many people look the same as they did in 1979, do they…?

Up next were The Rezillos, punk-pop contemporaries of the Members, who reformed a few years back and have been gigging solidly since. Fronted by the energetic Fay Fife and the bequiffed Eugene Reynolds, they rattled through most of their 1978 Album Can’t Stand the Rezillos, a new wave classic that all fans of the genre should download if they don’t have a copy already.

Headliners New Model Army drew the biggest crowd of the weekend (that we saw), mostly dressed in black and with serious expressions, unlike the regular Endorset crowd. We wandered off for some alternative sounds and enjoyed Vice Squad playing unannounced in the bus bar, and fed and watered ourselves on great food and rink for what, for a festival anyway, is a pretty reasonable price.

Sunday at Endorset is famous for the scrumpy-swigging cross-dressing party crowd, but this was the first time we’d actually been around on the final day. Literally hundreds of men were dressed in various takes on female attire, from full-on goth chick to beardy bloke in his mum’s frock. There were actually stalls where would-be drag queens could be made over en femme. This freaked out  eight year old Vincent somewhat initially, but he soon got used to things. (I thought I’d seen everything, but an accidental sighting of a lanky youth in full-length velvet gown relieving himself while standing at the unfortunately plainly visible urinals was a sigh I’ll not forget in a hurry.)

We camped out in the kids’ area for much of the afternoon, and enjoyed a chainsaw artist entertain the kids, some kung fu classes and a bunch of people bouncing about on kangaroo jumps. A visit to the Wildcat Stage revealed a rousing set by Fat Drunk and Stupid, a punk covers band, who actually had a better reception when playing the Members’ Solitary Confinement than the originals had to the song the day before.

Later in the evening, we were looking forward to seeing Alabama 3 Acoustic, but found them a mite tedious and unworthy of such a prominent slot. Nipping across to the other tent, I caught a few minutes of the Wurzels entertaining a raucous and cider-soaked audience, very tempting but too hectic for our young family.

Sunday night headliners were Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction, once famous as pastiche sleaze rockers who could throw a decent tune together. But that was a long while ago. Gone are the leathers and the hair, and in are ruffled Vegas shirts and baldness. The music – god, where to start? A litany of sexist, homophobic lyrics – ironic or just rubbish? It definitely appeared to be the latter. I was embarrassed to have the children present. We were well outside the tent, and the boys didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the band, but I found the whole experience pretty dire. Even Jon, a card-carrying Mindwarp fan, declared the set rubbish and we left. We weren’t the only ones, the tent was already half-empty and thinning out.

Unwilling to go straight to bed, we joined the Strummerville crowd, watching some unknown band on a tiny stage but more transfixed by the leaping flames of the festival campfire.

We packed and left on Monday morning, the odd musical disappointment not marring our experience one bit. This is the one festival that the little ones love as much as the adults and long may it remain so.