Echoes and dust

Friday
As we drove the car through the Butlins’ gates we got that familiar tingle of anticipation, here we were again, and then we saw the queue to check in... and then we saw the other queue, the one for the My Bloody Valentine wristbands, the one that stretched back and back and back in to the distance in the dripping rain and realised that, just for once, ATP had got something rather wrong. Surely there must have been a better way to dole out these wristbands, especially as in the end it didn’t really seem to matter which night you got a band for?

As a result of this we miss Wounded Knees, in fact I’m fairly sure most people miss Wounded Knees, which is a shame but once we got ourselves sorted out, stuff deposited in chalets and a couple of beers consumed all this frustration faded in to the background and we headed off to see Josh T Pearson.

Pearson is the former main man of Lift To Experience who’s only contribution to the musical cannon was 2001’s ‘The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads’ but it’s back in this style tonight’s set resides  rather than the acousticy stuff he’s been playing recently and is all the better for it. Stripped down and raw, this Jesus bearded Texan is a powerful and compelling performer and kicked of our festival with what would prove to be a real highlight.

To get a party really started though you need real old-time pros and currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of ‘Three Feet High And Rising’ De La Soul fit that bill to a tee. One of the few acts I’ve ever seen truly get to grips with Minehead’s Pavillion stage, the boys know how to get a crowd rocking like very few others. They are one of those bands that always surprise you with how many if their songs you know and the wheel them all out tonight. Brilliant, bouncy fun.

We spend the next few hours wandering between the twin disappointments of Primal Scream and Yo La Tengo. The Scream give it a good go but are lost in the cavernous Pavillion space and Yo La Tengo drift between the inspired and the twee just too often to be really engaging, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s nearly time, for the first time this weekend it’s nearly My Bloody Valentine time!

Maybe it’s the almost unattainable level of expectation that has built up, maybe it’s Kevin being precious about not being able to hear himself in the monitors (seriously dude, we are so not here to hear you singing) or maybe it’s the fact that it’s just not loud enough, it is a strangely flat performance, even the traditional white noise onslaught during ‘You Made Me Realise’ is curtailed to a mere six minutes. Still, MBV not quite on form is still many times better than most other bands, so we soldier through safe in the knowledge that if they were not good tonight we can see them again tomorrow night. And the next. How good is that?

We round the evening off by heading over to Reds to see Serena Maneesh who cheer us up no end with a rollicking good set of riff driven shoegaze tunes, even if main man Emil Nikolaisen is dressed like some sort of Ben Stiller character.

Saturday
A new morning dawns, well I say morning but obviously it’s more like early afternoon, and after a cracking cooked brunch we head once more in to the fray and catch The Membranes. They’ve reformed after 20 years especially for this gig and doesn’t singer John Robb let us know. In fact he pretty much doesn’t shut up about all the things he has a chip on his shoulder about through the entire set, which is a shame because without his incessant babble they would have been quite enjoyable.

To escape this verbal tirade, we amble downstairs to check out the Sun Ra Arkestra who just look absolutely fabulous but sound like seven guys all playing different songs. This is Jazz apparently. Under other circumstances I might have found it intriguing but in our somewhat hungover, booze addled state this was not on the menu.

That Petrol Emotion are up next. They are one of those bands who’s name I remember from my youth but have no recollection as to whether or not I liked them. As soon as they came on I’m guessing probably not. They are basically a pub band styled by Nicky Clarke and I’m left wondering what they are doing here. Perhaps a case of who you know rather than what you sound like?

Fortunately it’s about time we had another highlight so on shambles the grizzled form of Sir J Mascis and his Fog. This version of The Fog, featuring the gargantuan Kyle Spence on bass and Dave Schools on drums, is probably the most virtuosic group of musicians that Mascis has played with and boy it shows. These guys are amazing, the sound is blisteringly loud yet crystal clear and utterly beautiful.

The first half is just them getting in to their stride and warming up for a second half that is not just one of the highlights of this or any ATP but one of the most monumental things we’ve ever heard! There is a point, after six or seven minutes of hurricane like guitar soloing from Mascis where it all crashes down and there is a moment of perfect stillness in the eye of the storm before the main riff starts again, it’s as if the whole crowd draws a collective gasp for air and a truly heart-stopping moment. They then play ‘The Wagon’ and this already tinder dry crowd go off like a firecracker. Awesome in the truest sense of the word.

As we stagger from the room we look at the timetable and look at what’s coming next. Oh, just Sonic Youth. Fuck, I love ATP!

Ver Youth are, of course, quite brilliant. They run through what is a relatively coherent set for them and are the first band in the day to get to grips with the Pavillion space. Thruston Moore is his usual languid self as he orchestrates his cohorts through a set of casual magnificence.

By this time we are very much riding the booze rollercoaster so the sight of Lightning Bolt doing their ‘we are two talented musicians masturbating in front of you’ thing is just way too much so we wonder off and have another crack at My Bloody Valentine and this time around they are everything they weren’t last night, relaxed, fluid and Earth-shatteringly loud. In this form they truly inhabit a world of their own.

How do you follow that? Well, No Age certainly don’t know, which is a shame because they were on next.

Although they were a bit disappointing they did at least give us the chance to have a bit of a breather before the evening’s denouement.

Fucked Up. They do exactly what it says on the tin. To be honest I can’t really tell you too much about the music they played because from about thirty seconds after singer Pink Eyes smashed a can of coke in to his head during the intro to the first song until the end of the gig I am lost in a thrashing mosh-pit in a way I haven’t been since I was about twenty! If J Masics was the weekend’s musical high point then this was the physical experience of a lifetime. The sight of forcing my way to the front to be confronted with the vision of my normally introverted and retiring friend screaming in to Pink Eyes face and then to have another friend come crowd surfing over our head, high fiving Mr Eyes on the way past, is one that will live with me always.

Sunday
And so we come to Sunday, glorious Sunday. I always love the third day of ATP, or any festival really. Adrenalin and beer tend to get you through the first two days in a blur but by the time you get to Sunday it’s starting to take its toll. You’re now only drinking in a desperate bid to stay ahead of the tsunami of a hangover that is on the horizon and the only thing that is going to see you through to the end is the music. In essence it boils the ATP experience down to its fundamentals and that has always been about the music.

We stagger out of our pit just in time to see Gemma Hayes and stand there bleary eyed with the other recovering alcoholics to listen to her pleasant but slightly bland and undemanding songs, probably just the start we needed really.

The Lilys snap us out of our reverie, not with their sub-Pavement, jangly college rock but mostly by virtue of the fact that singer Kurt Heasley is possibly the most irritating man in the world. There are very few people I have ever met that I’ve wanted to punch in the face as soon as they’ve opened their mouths but Heasley joined that select few instantly. Even his fellow band members looked like they wanted to give him a slap.

This is soon forgotten though as A Place To Bury Strangers come on and burn the fucking house down. It’s hard to put in to words what the three silhouetted figures up on stage do, but they are quite simply awe inspiring in the truest sense of the word. Half way through their set I start to wonder whether if this is still really music as such or whether we have entered the realm purely of sonic manipulation as wave after wave of uber-distorted noise crashes around me. They are cataclysmic, raining down ragnarok on the confined Centre stage space.

It would be perfectly understandable if Adam Franklin and the rest of the Swervedriver boys were sat backstage at this point feeling very old, once upon a time Swervedriver themselves were considered heavy in Indie terms, but if that was the case it certainly doesn’t show as they quickly hit their stride and demonstrate that for all of the sonic gymnastics of the current generation nothing, and I mean nothing, beats a good fucking riff! There’s a killer moment towards the end of the set when they throw down the one-two of ‘Rave Down’ and ‘Son Of Mustang Ford’ that is just untouchable.

Things are now starting to get a bit hazy, coinciding with a bit of a lull in the quality of the music. On Centre EPMD are laying down their old skool, and rather one dimensional, rap thing, meanwhile out in the Pavilion Múm are struggling to fill the vast space with their gentle electronica.

Bob Mould promises to be more engaging but just goes to show that no matter how much of a legend you may be, coming on stage on your lonesome with an acoustic guitar playing a bunch of songs that sound like Del Amitri sucks. Really sucks. In fact sucks all the more because you were a legend. Seriously, Husker Du to this?

Just as things look to be unravelling, we stagger in to Reds and are instantly kicked back in to gear by the wonderfully joyful experience that is Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart. Yes, they sound like every record that I bought between 1986 and 1988 but tonight that really doesn’t matter as they just sound so God damned joyful, spinning their jangly washes of guitar through tune after tune. What is most exciting is the best song they played in an exceptional set was a new song and so bodes well for the future.

So, once more in to the breach and back up to the suicide for ears that is My Bloody Valentine. Some might think that seeing the same band three nights in a row could be a tad boring, that may well be the case if the band in question are not one of the finest sonic experiences in the history of recorded music (ok, I might be getting a little hyperbolic here but damn they are good) and it appears tonight they’ve turned it up another notch, or it may just be that tonight we are stood right by the PA, sans ear plugs! Epic and magnificent.

Thus it gently unwinds from here, School Of Seven Bells are surprisingly good and Brightblack Morning Light monumentally dull, and all that remains is for us to get up on a miserable Monday morning and wend our way quietly down the M4, stopping occasionally for members of our team to throw up on the hard shoulder, and debate whether Pavement can possibly even begin to live up to expectation in six months time. Roll on May!