Get Out More..................................................Festival Review

ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES (Butlins, Minehead)

28-05-2008

OK, so it was over a week ago now, but Damien Doran has only just recovered from the Festival where you don't come home caked in mud - and where you can bump into the lead singer of Dinosaur Jr in Boots. Now that doesn't happen at Glastonbury.

Glastonbury may not have sold out this year and as far as I'm concerned its little wonder.

There's no way you would get me camping outdoors in the rain, wallowing in mud and queuing in a car park for days, which is why this years All Tomorrows Parties festival was right up my street.

OK it takes place at Butlins in Minehead,hardly the coolest of venues, but where else can you see over 40 bands (in the dry) and also get to go water sliding, go-carting, ten pin bowling, take part in pop quizzes (so obscure you will never get the answers), watch the Cup Final, drink in bars 'til gone 4am and get to sleep in a proper bed?

The idea behind the festival is simple: have an artist curate the event and get them to invite all their mates to come and play. This time it was the turn of American band Explosions in the Sky, a Texan Mogwai, all guitars and no vocals. They create sweeping landscapes of sound in a 'quiet slow loud fast' etc, kind of way. I do them an injustice, they are really good and worth checking out.

Explosions had put together a US dominated mix of bands from the well known such as Dinosaur Jr, De La Soul and Broken Social Scene through to strange experimental acts, ambient, dance and rap.

Glasto may have Jay-Z but ATP had ex Wu Tang Clan members Ghostface Killah and Raekwon and protest rapper Saul Williams, who performed as his new creation 'Niggytardust' (I kid you not). Williams has produced some good stuff but this time I think more attention to the songs and less to the costumes please.

The great thing about ATP is that you get see bands you wouldn't otherwise come across.

For me, discoveries included a number of groups that have been around for years, but I have missed, such as Silver Jews and Okkervil River. Best find are The Paper Chase, another Texan group, fronted by the twisted leader/singer/songwriter, John Congleton, accompanied by a three piece backing band.

The bass player is a tall bushy hair, bearded man who in his clean white shirt looks like a cross between your chemistry teacher and a serial killer, presumably depending on his mood. With deep bass, stop-start guitars and macabre chopping piano they play music to accompany badly shot horror movies.

Songs such as the terrific 'We know where you sleep' and 'The house is alive, the house is hungry' ensure they wont be Chris Moyle's record of the week or be invited to play at your children's birthday party.

Performances take place on three separate indoor stages from early afternoon until 3am. There is a main pavilion for the big headliners and two smaller rooms which are still bigger than the Carling Academy. Views are good and for many of the bands they get to play in front of their biggest and probably most appreciative audience. They are so close together that if you don't like the band you're watching you can pop next door and see another one.

Best night of the three days was the Saturday. The National headlined the big Pavilion stage playing songs from their wonderful 'Boxer' album. With their beautifully crafted sound and rich deep crooning vocals I am sure they are destined for Killers-type pop greatness and big festival appearances, at which point of course I will drop them.

After they had finished I set up camp in the Centre Stage bar to see Adem and his six piece band with acoustic guitars, violins, harp and glockenspiel. Playing songs by the likes of PJ Harvey, Low and The Breeders from his covers album 'Takes' you almost have to strain to listen, its what the cliché 'Lo-Fi was invented for.

If Adem was laid back, Stars of the Lid are horizontal. Set against a psychedelic background their drone induced atmospheric one note music sees exhausted bodies crashing out on the floor as the sounds wash over them.

But its not long before they are up again as the hyper energetic electro dance of Battles has the entire room bouncing culminating in mass hysteria for their anthemic 'Atlas' with its computer generated 'Pinky and Perky' vocals and throbbing beat. They are just beaten to noisiest band of the weekend by the head splitting sonic wall of sound and light overload that is Animal Collective.

One of the best things about ATP is that the bands themselves wander around taking in the music,or riding the water slides, largely unnoticed.

This can't be said of the easily identifiable J Mascis of the reformed Dinosaur Jr, a big man with his trademark long blonde (now greying) hair and glasses,as I queued up behind him in the Butlins shop. Later I bumped into him in Boots in Minehead and then again when watching a band.

We exchanged looks of recognition. His seemed to imply I was stalking him, he should think himself lucky I'm not that bloke from The Paper Chase.

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