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.


Back to the pasta. I couldn't eat it whilst driving the 4 or so hours from Leeds to Minehead and the kids needed a few breaks along the way so we stopped off at a few services between A and B. Roadside refreshment: wow... the hollow, vacuous taste of capitalism, coffee and pre-christmas money draining sales orgies. I'd say i'd stuck to the pasta and hunger pangs but a mince pie and a crème brûlée latte is far too tempting to pass down even if i had to hand over a kidney or two for the privilege.

After cutting up several old ladies in the car park due to a lack of concentration and rusty driving skills, we continued onwards. Onwards to the average speed cameras aka. the new satan. The south is infested with them. A terrifyingly dull drive.

Once we left the myriad of motorways we followed a small road into minehead. We carried onwards through town. Butlins was our destination. I'm surprised the car was covered in bloods, guts and hairspray by the time we'd parked. Suicidal indie clones, swarming in front of, over and between the cars. At one point my front bumper had collected a joey ramone, faris badwan and la roux-a-like, all being dragged to their slow, first gear, asphalt-grating demise. Fender ketchup in circulation restricting jeans.

Out of the car and covered in suitcases, we soon found why the crowds were more afraid of safety than vehicle-borne collisions: puddles deeper than most hi-tops. A couple of hellish queues and we had our chalet complete with Rob pulling off a goatse impression via a misguided bath intrusion. Now a cancer to the memory, burnt to my retinas. Pre-drunks/pre-drinks... whatever you want to call us/it, we hit the collection of bottles at our disposal: whiskey, pimms, gin, beer, cider etc. etc. After a few i needed a coffee but water wasn't available. Southern Comfort had to do. You'd be surprised how well bourbon works in place of H20 with instant, free-with-the-room packet coffee. We tucked into a pocket full of meowww powder and headed for De La Soul...

The first act of the weekend and they were amazing, i think. I definitely needed a burger and, with Burger King handily directly left of the mainstage, i got my wish: whoppers, hip hop legends and a fuzzy head. Great set, much dancing and the best vibe possible to set off ATP.

Primal Scream and Yo La Tengo... both poor. We (at this point, me and maz) wandered between the two and were pretty bored throughout. Yawn.

We left Yo La Tengo's set on the 2nd stage, as did everyone else. The venue was cleared every night to get the place ready for My Bloody Valentine, the band I'd come to see. Tales of tinnitus-inducing, beautiful noise hitting you in the gut. Earplugs for all, they sprayed the crowds with them on the way back in. I was expecting sonic death without them. Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe the band were on an off day (weekend?), who knows? Disappointment hit me hard and the Buzzcocks set washed over me with cold apathy. What was wrong with MBV? What was right? Shields didn't want to be there, the band seemed to be fighting to keep him on stage, the sound was terrible, the PA struggled to stay on, the volume was too low making the idea of earplugs a joke... for a band with such a legacy and legend with was a massive kick in the nuts for someone that believed the hype. The songs were fairly tight but there was energy, no interaction, nothing more than a staid, flat recital. I may as well have spent my ticket money on some big speakers and played their back catalog to myself. The highlight for all the wrong reasons was Rob dressed in a banana suit bothering the pretenses of the crowd:



(i don't take any credit for the above video. it's a youtube find!)

The highlight for all the right reasons was the "holocaust" section in the midst of You Made Me Realise. It actually had some balls to it, it was close to deafening at times and it went on for a ridiculous 15 minutes of amazing, screaming noise. Exactly what i wanted from the band but too little, too late to save the entirety of the set.

The Buzzcocks were a complete meh banana suit or not.

I drowned my sorrows back at base camp. More fun dust and drunkenness followed. We met the neighbors, Rob and Seymour managing to scare away the guitarist from Ariel Pink in the process. We shuffled off to Crazy House, the on site drinking hole/low quality discotheque. Rob headed off to put the banana suit to bed and lost his mind and his way back in the wet, bleak darkness, an unwanted feature of the weekend. Cold, rainy and grey. A panicked phone call from the artist formally dressed a banana and we left to try and reunite our friend with his sanity. We stepped out of the main entrance to see him waiting outside, confused. It was a quick, easy trip to our door and Seymour took up the job of being a hilarious dick which a quick kick to the crotch should of dealt with. A full blown battle ensued and lots of orange kit kats were fired my way. I did not go to bed hungry.