All Tomorrow's Parties 4/4

We woke at 7:30 to clean the chalet, our minds and ourselves. Food and fuel was grabbed via the aforementioned Tescos. At was at this point that Rob became a granddad. Confused and agitated by the world, he explained that after I went to bed, he snaffled the remains of his pixie dust, ran off to the Crazy Horse and ended up in another Chalet where he wrote and recorded an off the cuff demo with some guys from Cornwall. He hadn't been to sleep at all and was still up. Very much up.

I whacked the CDs on again. Driving back was far worse than the drive down: a constant battle of heavy eye lids and Relentless Juiced Berry (seriously. endorsement.) The average speed cameras hit us harder this time. With so many roadworks along the stretches free of cameras, progress was slow and we all lost our minds to the cabin fever insanity. The pasta was now able to melt steel and fumes were probably intoxicating us off our collective faces. This required constant service stops so that we could find a large open space for screaming and bloodletting to keep us on the right side of crazed. If Rob had become the drug addled grandfather, Seymour was quickly becoming the child in need of tranquilisers. Powerful ones.

All Tomorrow's Parties 3/4

Sunday was day three and we took a much needed lie in until the afternoon, missing everything up a Place To Bury Strangers. We stayed for the first half of their set which was nothing but dull. We were later told the second half of their set was amazing, but why play half a set of boredom to slog through before the good stuff. Whatever. I'm not a fan, never have been so it's no loss to me.

As I said, we left the grey, non-event of A Place To Bury Strangers and retreated to the arcades for round two of our video game battles before we headed home once more to hang with the neighbors before múm.

Múm were grand in scale but far more open and euphoric than i was expecting. Theirs set was weighted with newer tracks that forgo the older, darker sounds. It made for a nice set, and probably fitted the sunday a bit better as a chill out/warm down from the night before. As with Sonic Youth, some of the crowd moaned about the set choice but it worked if you took it for what i was. Maybe if they'd been given a slot on the darker, noiser saturday we may have seen some of the more oppressive múm material. The band also had to regularly contend with sounds emanating from the arcades, something quite farcical for a festival on this scale.

All Tomorrow's Parties 2/4

Day two began with a hangover, front and vice. We managed, with herculean effort, to lift our leaden heads off our pillows and out the door for the weekends most bizarre spectacle: Sun Ra Arkestra. An amazing array of sparkly outfits and free form calamity jazz with truely interesting results, they had to be one of the highlights of the whole weekend for me. Some impromptu break neck speed charleston-esque dancing from one of the sax players, who could easily claim a pension or two, made for a jaw dropping visual metaphor to the impressive set. Afterward we sought out two friends who had also made the epic journey down from Leeds in search of some beautiful noises; mike and teresa. We once again sought out some food from one of the nearby vendors, this this time plumping for some Finnigan's fish and chips which were revolting. Soggy batter, dry fish, shit chips and expensive... you may be wondering what happened to the pasta, so did we! It wasn't going well for our epic tubs o' carbs and the concept of eating them was dropped on this, the saturday, due to the funky odors and worringly tangy/sour tastes arising from our plastic nosh mountains. With a poor excuse for fish and chips in my belly and other food options looking increasingly insane price wise we landed upon a heavy and fateful decision. Do we go to Tescos and buy some cheap grub or stay and try and enjoy the Horrors? I voted for the faceless corporate monster that wanted to assure me that "...every little helps!" ...they do cheap sandwiches.

Poverty and hunger beget principles.

All Tomorrow's Parties 1/4

After Leeds and Bestival, ATP was my third festival this year. We (Maz, Seymour, Rob and myself) decided to wait until only seconds remained before we had to get down to Minehead before pondering the transport question, by which point trains, planes and buses had become very very expensive. Instead, we lied to a hire car company about driver details, essentially age and identity, and we swanned off in a tidy seat ibiza packing in the kids (Rob and Seymour) and the luggage in the back and boot. It was day one, friday, and we had a road trip on our hands.

Food was going to be expensive and I, an inhabitants of studentdom, copied Rob's seemingly amazing idea of cooking a shit load of pasta and throwing it in the biggest tupperware container known to man. This helped, at least at first. Other amazing money saving options included two home burnt mix cd's from yours truely and Seymour's audio bargin hunting (£2 for Fucked Up's latest and £6 for the best of the buzzcocks, the second of which is, looking back, terrible value but back then, caffeine had already made us it's bitch). Fucked Up, a band that wrestled my head with arguments aplenty. I initially heard about them more for their name, political imagery play and extra-musical activities, mostly revolving around jail time. I admit, it was all wikipedia's fault and i was romanced, as i always am, by open source information-gasms. My first taste of Fucked Up live left a shitty taste in my mouth. At Leeds fest, i was massively disappointed. To my ears they bombed so hard that all i could hear was dresden circa '45. It's funny how opinions can be turned by an album listen of attrition forced by the overplay of all other options; my mix cd's that were now into their 4th listen or the dreaded buzzcocks cd which was terrible. The chemistry of common life became an oasis for my ears.