Wildcards and unexpected surprises define Saturday at End of the Road 2024

End of the Road reaches feverish heights on Saturday with a stacked deck of wildcards redefining everything you’ve come to expect from the festival.

Historically, the line-up has had an affinity for earthy, folk-driven softness, but as it nears its second decade, it has evolved to become a magic 8-ball for the disruptors on the rise and the rulers of the underground. With sets from the likes of industrial-rap experimentalist Debby Friday, NYC electro-punk messiahs Lip Critic and a headline from the elusive masked rapper, CASISDEAD, End of the Road contains worlds within worlds.

To shock people from their morning stupor on the Best Fit-curated Piano Stage is a secret four-track performance from Master Peace. Merging hip-hop instincts with raucous, rough-and-tumble guitars, the singer made his ambitions known with a song that needs no introduction: Blur’s “Song 2”. It’s an exceptional opener for a stage usually inviting gentle, pared-back performances – Master Peace spares nothing.

Elsewhere, in the depths of the forest on The Boat stage, there is Kenyan-Australian singer-songwriter and rapper Elsy Wameyo, who fuses hip-hop with traditional African signatures, preceded by a surprise performance on the Garden Stage from Julia Jacklin.

The Big Top feels almost electrically charged with chaos – even in the middle of the afternoon. Lip Critic are leading the charge with floor-fillers for the end times, a bewildering collision of four minds building worlds from Brooklyn basements.

The Partisan Records newcomers fuse hip-hop delirium with the energy of JPEGMAFIA. With two drummers locked in a death drive and two samplers approaching their boards as if casting hexes, Lip Critic have a remarkable gift for theatrics. Vocalist Bret Kaser jumps from monitors to drumming platforms as if the stage is just a playground for parkour, with a vocal style that evokes a demented newscaster. The band returns for a secret encore at 1:30am at The Folly, and their performance thrives all the more for it at such a strange, delirious hour.

The spirit of subversion continues at the Big Top with era-defining NYC rapper and Armand Hammer member Billy Woods, whose literate rhymes, unpredictable flows, and logic-eschewing production draw the crowd into a dream state. The Woods Stage and Garden Stage headliners are quintessentially End of the Road, however: Slowdive and Richard Hawley. Wandering from one to the other only heightens the magical, otherworldly feeling the Larmer Tree Gardens conjure up late at night.

But the jewel in Saturday’s crown is undoubtedly the Big Top headliner, CASISDEAD. The masked MC is shrouded in questions, silent and untraceable for years at a time - yet if you follow UK grime to its roots, he is a veteran of the scene as vital as the likes of Skepta and Wiley for those in the know.

Flanked with bottle-rocket hype-men, he unleashes his crowd-igniting classics and rave-fuelled deep cuts, interspersing them with tracks from his new album, Famous Last Words. As cyberpunk neo-noir graphics bleed into the darkness behind him, his performance evokes the Lynchian, 80s-indebted sound of modern classics like “Marilyn” and the fade-to-black closer, “Pat Earrings”. He is an eminently capable performer, delivering a set that is equal parts electric and introspective – one of the most unexpected wonders End of the Road has ever offered.

Saturday feels like a decisive turning point for the festival, proving that their ear is more attuned to the rumblings of the underground than ever before, honouring tradition while fixing its gaze firmly on the future.