All Tomorrow’s Parties has been known for many years its random collection of musical acts and this year was no exception. The first weekend of ATP saw the return of the fans getting to vote for whoever they wanted to play, this making up half the line-up and the other curated by the folks at ATP themselves.It was because of this half voting, half curated system that gave us quite a random selection of acts from stoner doom metal to synth-pop to folk and plenty more in between.
Friday had LA noise rockers HEALTH deafen the audience with tracks from their debut album whilst they thrash around on stage to the tune of artfully crafted noise built from synths, guitars, distortion and tribal sounding drums (which by the way did get a thorough beating) definitely one the best of the weekend if not the best. Don’t forget to check their new album Get Color later in the year!
Headliners on the first night had cult 80’s art-rockers Devo back wearing their trademark jumpsuit and Bill and Ben-esque headwear. Armed with a box full of quirky rock songs the middle-aged flower pot men gave the people what they wanted, a damn good rock show! The band played through 90 minutes of all their hits including Secret Agent Man, Satisfaction, Freedom of Choice and Whip It, all guaranteed to make you dance like your back in the 80’s.
Later on that night had hip-hop legends Anti-pop Consortium take to the stage to see if they could stand each other for long enough to complete their set and it turns out they can…..just. After some stage storm offs, on-stage rap battles and instrumental improvs they proved why they are so highly regarded. Despite being the only hip-hop artist on the bill that weekend they defended their corner and won over some new fans in the process.
After the first night of drinking, debauchery and tomfoolery it was time to have a relaxing start to Saturday, enter the Cave Singers. The Seattle trio opened the main stage and filled the vast space of Butlins indoor pavilion with their brand of folk music which sounds like it belongs back in 60’s which seems like an odd departure from former Pretty Girls Make Graves guitarist (now Cave Singers guitarist) Derek Fudesco. Beautiful, calming, charming and if it can fill Butlins it can fill your ears and heart.
Later on that day saw the first of two Don’t Look Back gigs that weekend, this one coming from influential indie-minimalists Young Marble Giants performing their first, last and only album Colossal Youth. Seeing them live is like stepping back in time as it was exactly like how it was on the record, but then again how hard can it be messing up they supremely minimalist sound. It apparently wasn’t hard messing up the sound but it hard keeping everything in tune as they had to stop after every song to tune up again. However, that was a minor inconvenience for getting to hear Alison Stratton fragile voice sing you off to a far off beautiful place.
Grizzly Bear swooned the crowd on the main stage with their smooth mix of alt-indie-country style music which featured guest appearance by Nico Muhly (who also played earlier on that day) and sublime cover of Carol King’s ‘He Hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss).
New York guitar mistress Marnie Stern finger tapped her way through her rather raunchy set. Despite having some technical difficulties at the end the crowd were kept entertained by the bass player’s anecdotes of the life of Marnie. As far as jaunty guitar rock goes she is fine example of it definitely a girl to check out live in your area.
The final day of this three day tomfoolery has come to bring us some more mixing of the genres featuring goth-rock, indie-disco, pop-punk, shoe-gazing and much more.
Welsh rockers Future of the Left ripped into the crowd with quirky songs and with their jibes at bearded, checked shirt wearing crowd members, I did feel sorry for the guy in the multi coloured hoodie who got it quite badly but that’s what you get for an sartorial mistakes at their gigs but I digress. They were another highlight from the weekend playing tracks from their upcoming album and plenty from their debut album ‘Curses’ my personal highlight of the set was the simple riff greatness of ‘Small Bones Small Bodies’ and watching bass player Kelson Mathias crowd surfing despite not really being enough people but you have admire that kind of determination.
Later on we had the disappointment of having experimental rock band Parts and Labor performing on the main stage and despite having produced one of the finest album in recent times they just can’t seem to pull it off live. Just thinking about makes me sad so I’m going to stop writing about them now. Disappointing.
Cosmic indie legends Spiritualized took the headline slot on the main stage to complete the line up on that stage for the weekend. Opening with their version of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ set the tone for the rest of the set. Watching them felt like a spiritual experience but that could be due to them having gospel singers as backing vocalists. Packing the set with songs from the critically acclaimed ‘Ladies and Gentlemen We’re Floating in Space’ and plenty more from the back catalogue they really delved into all their past albums to show the crowd what they’re made of spaced out, cosmic, shogazing, indie wonder. Beautiful.
Grunge veterans The Jesus Lizard showed the kids how its done as singer David Yow whipped his top off and snaked round the stage (almost like a lizard, coincidence?) and his voice cracking slightly on some of the songs but they could be down to overdoing on they performance the previous night. Playing tracks from all their albums to give everyone the benefit of their experience and proving the older bands can still keep up the youth of today and show them a thing or two!
Final act of the weekend we had stoner rock pioneers Sleep who reformed just the festival for a one off never to be repeated show of the cult album Holy Mountain and selections from the epic Dopesmoker. They might not have been the happiest of bands that weekend but they certainly were the loudest I had to retreat to the bathroom to stuff my ears with tissue paper to make it bearable. Proving themselves as being the legends they are they put on one of the best shows of the weekend with crunching, distorted guitars and bass and pounding drums, watching them was like being kicked the face by Satan himself. Dark, moody, evil but consistently brilliant and showing why they are the legends they are and why Holy Mountain has lasted this long and is still influencing bands today.
Leaving ATP always fills you sadness but you can always take comfort in knowing that it won’t be long until the next one at Christmas curated by noise rock band My Bloody Valentine. See you at Christmas.
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