ATP - An End of An Era Part 2
OM – good. Not quite
loud enough, I felt, and maybe they work better in a smaller room like, say,
the exchange in Bristol. Also, playing
to a festival crowd meant less of a congregation worshipping at their
sound. The final track also did not seem
to play out that well, going out with a whimper rather than a bang, which again
I imagine would have worked better with a more attentive crowd.
However, it was a good start to my final ATP, having missed
Thought Forms due to being sat on the M25 (though being from Bristol means that
this is not the worst thing in the world).
Already being slightly drunk means that I have not really taken in the
significance of being at AN END OF AN ERA ATP, but turning up later has meant
that everyone else has had time to heat up Pontins for me. Cheers.
I catch some of Eaux, but decide that eating food is more
important than watching so electro band with an undermixed female vocalist,
however this sets me up for Follakzoid.
Already one of my favourite albums of the year, live they certainly
delivered. Setting a certain droney level of sound over
their krautrock inspired sound (it is no surprise they were not programmed too
near Michael Rother) my chalet partner kept on saying, well I need to go for
Shellac…but…I will stay for one more song… (admittedly each song was at least
10 minutes long). So engrossing as they
were rocking.
We are then left with the two big hitters of Friday (not
even the weekend) Shellac and Slint – one cannot help but feel sorry for Civil
Civic, as I cannot imagine a single person went to see them rather than the ATP
house band that is Shellac. Wearing
dinner jacket t-shirts shellac offer their metallic band of punk rock for one
last time. While they do not play prayer
to god (played at their London show apparently) squirrel song is good enough
and a track of their “soon to be announced” new LP is equal to their older
material. Bob Westons Q & A session
seems oddly truncated – maybe he is too choked up by the occasion? Steve Albini is quoted in the programme as
saying ATP changed music festivals, and I cannot help but agree – ATP offers
something that Reading or Glastonbury cannot offer, and that’s more than a bed
at the end of the night and two pence slot machines.
People would complain that ATP would end up booking the same
bands – Shellac, for example have played an
awful lot of times but how often do they play the UK? At all?
Then you ask, how popular were the more experimental ATP’s – the Mike
Patton vs. The Melvins, the Godspeeds?
Not very is the answer, even though I feel they are exactly the tonic
for the same fucking bands playing in a field every fucking summer because of
the way economics works. Piffle. But then if the choice is between Shellac in
Pontins or Mumford and Sons in a field in Somerset, I think most of this crowd
know where their loyalties lay.
Slint, oh Slint, who now only seem to exist to be wheeled
out by ATP to play the hits. You wonder
what the younger generation think about a bunch of guys in their 40’s
(including, hey, that guy from Zwan, and Interpol!!) playing music they ripped
off Mogwai (though I appreciate folk nowadays have a wider musical
knowledge…) Slint don’t resort to
loudness, but a subtle blend of guitar riffs and, er, undermixed male vocalists
(the originator of which manages to surprise everyone, including apparently the
rest of the band, by stagediving into the crowd, leaving his other band members
to stand around for five minutes, until he returned slightly bedraggled to the
stage). Having seem them perform
Spiderland through before (at, yes, and ATP don’t look back gig) I could
appreciate their set more this time, and they seemed more relaxed, but I don’t
feel like I need to see Slint live again, maybe not for another five years
anyway…
I don’t stay up to dance, but retire to bed, as an old man I
have to know my limits, and still recovering from last ATP means I want to be
in good form for tomorrow….
At which point I am woken up at 9 to watch Two Lane
Blacktop, a road movie of little dialogue, featuring Dennis Wilson doing little
singing. While you admire the attempt to
make a cinema in the local hall, my feet feel more and more like a blocks of
ice as I sit there…
Kandodo are first on, Simon Price from Bristolian legends
the heads. No longer bashing out the
really loud riffy, or heavy psychadelia, the set offers an hour of spacey
ambient pieces, which maybe feel slightly out of place so early in the day, but
then again it gets dark between us going in to see the set and coming out, so
maybe he has powers greater than we can imagine…his last album found a more
rhythmic angle at the end, which despite playing with a live band, they do not
really investigate. [I did enjoy it though!]
A winger for sullen victory next – and while Stars of the
Lid were one of the best things at the Explosions in the Sky ATP, I was keen to
see what they were doing at this event.
However, despite working on stage with some violinist and cellist, their
sound did not quite do it for me today.
Being neither classical enough nor droney enough, they fell between the
two stalls. Occasionally I would be
drawn into the music, but it would be long before the mood dropped and you
found yourself back in colditz (I mean, pontins)…
Hookworms – can they top a incredibly successful year, with
their LP being voted drowned in sounds best british album of the year, and a
split with Kogumaza, they also had to live up to when I saw them with Mugstar
at Supersonic festival in the summer.
While they did not quite live up to that show (I was probably less drunk) they play a stormer of a
set. They play a new song near the end
that manages to slow the tempo down without affecting the intensity of the set,
and a suitably large crowd seems to enjoy it (I was worried that they might not
be that well known – what little do I know?).
Hookworms seem to be exactly the kind of band that ATP should be booking
– small independent bands with attitude and passion. Less indie shmindie bands…
Fennesz offers up a vastly alternative set. Previously at mike patton vs. melvins atp he
was besieged (is there any other way?) by technical difficulties and ended up
only playing for half and hour. Today
everything goes swimmingly, with Christians combination of lap-top electronica
and guitar making a loud droning racket (which winged failed to produce
earlier) and while he no longer quite lays the beach-boys esque pop of endless
summer, he offers a nice play to visits.
He still, however, only plays for half and hour, leaving us disappointed
and hoping for more…but no.
I watch about three
minutes of 23 Skidoo (which I have been told is an ideal time to judge how good
a band is) and decide they sound like a bunch of old men shouting at a
bin. One of the few dire aural
experiences I have the weekend. Feeling
that the Pop Group would be the same (I later discover that they were not – ho
hum!) I wait for comets on fire – expecting a hail storm of rock and roll to
rain upon me…which they do but they play quite a classic rock tinged set. As where on record they rise above their
roots, I don’t feel like they quite blow the roof off, and ben chasney hides to
the side, keeping his head down. Show us
guitar chops chasney!!
Loop then! I don’t
know if I am too tired, or too drunk, but Loop do not quite hit the spot
despite the fact I was reallyl looking forward to them. It is good, and if I could go and see the in
Bristol on the Monday night I would (I predict exhaustation will take me). They are still much better than Spacemen 3
mind!
Sunday – and the last day to be spend at ATP evah! I spot the character that played Winston from
Ghostbusters (Bill Murray must have told him about it). If you choose to stop going to an event,
that’s one thing, but when you have it taken away from you then it hurts that
bit more. So the best way to start the
day (after watching a couple of tracks by Jozef van Visem – whose tracks on the
lute, rock posturing aside, never really seem to get going, and you sit and
wait for a Jack Rose raga to get going…) is to go to a local pub, meet their
cat liquorice, and eat a really decent veggie curry. Hmmmm, the ale gets us going as well…
We feel bad about missing tall firs (though, er, not too
bad), but then all is made well by Michael Rother playing the songs of Neu!
& Harmonia. Any band nowadays to be
credited as sound “Krautrock” normally means they have a rhythm similar to
those seminal Neu! Albums (and nothing of Can, say, or Amon Dull II). While
Foals, unfathomanably, have made the 10 ten of some album of the year charts,
Rother returns to show us how it is really done. Klaus Dinger does not make his presence known
(though the one song that Rother admits Dinger mainly wrote harshly gets the
biggest cheer!) but the replacement drummer, who also appears to be a german in
his 60’s, amply fills his roll. They get
the crowd moving more than the more ambient sounds of Harmonia, but apart from
one overtly synthy 80’s track, the set is thoroughly enjoyable. The fact that ATP chose to give them a
headline set in London the following week is indicative of the power of the
set.
I miss Wolf People (definitely not because I was drinking)
but then go to watch The Magic Band.
Touring again after ATP asked them to reform 10 years ago, they offer a
bulbous set of beefheart classics. The
only thing you miss is the weirdness, the strangeness that Don Vliet must have
bought to the proceedings, as listening to Trout Mask Replica offers a
completely different experience as I drift to sleep on the Monday afterwards. However they interlocking musicians shine
during the set, and you can understand why the Captain took them on board.
Braid offer a surprising set of almost ambient drum and
bass, however this is just filling time, whiling away the hours, until the main
acts of tonight…GOAT and MOGWAI (the first and holy original ATP curators
(pretending that the Belle and Sebastian managed Bowlie Weekender never
happended…)
Goat, being the band de jour, have much to live up to. I saw them last year at Supersonic where they
were hampered by appalling sound on the main stage, where their album World
Music pushed to the front of your mind via the crispness and brightness of
their sound, and being loud without being overcompressed. Tonight however they are victorious. So good that they make we want to go and buy
their live album despite the fact they have only released on LP and two singles…
A huge crowd are here to see them (again, unlucky draw for Ty Segall who is on
downstairs at the same time)and get their rocks off to a masked band who as far
as we can tell is having as much fun as we are.
They take elements of many different genres and smoosh them together
with some vodoo magic.
Finally, triumphantly, Mogwai come on. They play a stormer of a set, peppered with
new songs that, seemingly like all Mogwai songs, fit swimmingly in with their
old classics. Some people feel like they
have not recorded a good album in 10 years.
Phooey to them I say, see them live and still tell me that…the band go
off stage, but no one believes that they will not come back on for an encore,
which they duly do. At 12.50 they finish
with Mogwai fear Satan, and ATP finishes.
Other members of the public wander off as a stand, dazed, listening to
Teenage Riot blaring out PA. I feel
slightly at a loss, I have been to ATP 15 odd times in the last 7 years, and
wonder how many bands I would not have seen if it hand been for this gem of a
festival, how differently my life would have panned out…
I walk past Barry Hogan as he plays out the festival with a
DJ set, but all I can think of is passing out in bed, and being out of the
chalet before that 10.00 in the morning deadline…
