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Despite playing opposite Getdown Services – whose overflowing tent had a one-in/one-out policy hours before they were due onstage – Van Etten was greeted by a huge, raincoat-donned crowd last night. “It is an honour to get to be here for the opening night of End of the Road,” she said early in the set. “This is our first time headlining a festival, so thanks for being witness to that. Women can headline festivals.”
Etten celebrated that fact with an especially jubilant performance that included quips, laughter, cat-pounce dancing, and balanced old fan favourites like “Seventeen” and “Every Time the Sun Comes up” against new tunes from The Attachment Theory’s self-titled album, released earlier this year. Some of these, like “I Can’t Imagine”, were products of impromptu jam sessions in which she felt comfortable enough to let go, as she told the crowd.
After her 2022 solo album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, Van Etten went back to school to study psychology – which gave her the name of her new project. She's also dabbled in acting, and shortly before the obligatory walk-off, gave a poignant dedication to the late David Lynch, a man who she says left us with mysteries to solve and whose films were screened in the End of the Road cinema tent throughout the night, providing refuge from the rain. “Tarifa” appeared in the 2017 Twin Peaks: The Return when Van Etten performed the song at the Roadhouse tavern.
Speaking about End of the Road Festival, now in its nineteenth year, Van Etten said, “It’s full of family and love and community and that’s what we need to perpetuate every single day.”
End of the Road Festival continues this evening with headline sets from Caribou, The National’s Matt Berninger, and Joy Orbison.
English (US) · 