East India Youth delivers rare acoustic show at End of the Road Festival

Pitching up in the middle of the forest at Larmer Tree Gardens, the electronic musician played a short set at an upright piano comprised of "Don't Look Backwards" and "Carousel".

Joking with the crowd, William Doyle recalled a similar set two years ago. "It wasn't very good," he said. "There were some children playing on the piano stage and we kicked them off. Someone asked me to play something they knew...."

"This is the first festival I came to as a punter when I was a teenager, back in 2008," Doyle told us. "At the time this seemed like an incredible happening. Even now - playing festivals is kind of my job now, but the wonder of this one hasn't really slipped away I don't think. The vibe is consistent every year. I've been here maybe four of five times now, and it's just beautiful. The Garden Stage is just amazing. I think the Piano Stage is one of the first things I happened upon back in 2008, and I was like 'wow, a piano in the middle of the forest, who would've thought it?' A great festival this is."

The set came after Doyle's energetic, packed Big Top headline set the previous evening and is part of Best Fit's serious of secret shows and sessions at the festival which have seen the likes of Andrew Combs, Nadine Shah, Meilyr Jones, Django Django and Mammút pop up around the site this weekend.

"This went slightly better than last time," Doyle said of his surprise set. "People clapped, so that's a marked improvement. I said yes to doing it, but I hadn't really planned what I was going to do, or how to play it, so I was just, sort of, feeling my way around. I think there was a sort of certain naivety to it that is maybe absent from the slick production of my set, so I guess in contrast it's nice. As a contrasting point it's of interest to people. I thought it was fun, I enjoyed it."

"These songs transfer well over to the piano, I think," Doyle added. "'Don't Look Backwards' I wrote on a piano. 'Carousel' I've never played on a piano before ever. That was the first time. I didn't even do a run through of it beforehand really. So I didn't know how it was going to go. I had an idea of the shape of it in my mind. Hopefully the songs are strong enough that they don't need all the production all the time to succeed. That's sort of the idea of what I do anyway - that if you strip back all the stuff at least there'll be some semblance of a half-decent song. That's what I was trying to put a spotlight on."

More secret shows are planned throught the rest of the day and on Sunday. Festival goers are advised to keep an eye on the Best Fit and End of the Road Twitter for further details - @bestfitmusic and @eotr.