I wrote this review for another site but I'll post on here too. Forget the other festivals, ATP is the future! All Tomorrows Parties Weekend Curated by Slint Review by Mark For those not in the ATP know, it's a festival weekend based at Pontins in Camber Sands Kent. A band is chosen to host the event which means choosing the other acts that play and selecting the programming shown on TV over the weekend. Included in the price is a chalet and the bands all perform indoors which is great for this time of year- it was cold! It is also refreshing to not have merchandise and sponsorship shoved down your throat as seems to be the norm with other festivals these days. This ATP was very special as it was the re-forming of Slint who split up after the recording of Spiderland, and tickets sold out in no time. I should start by saying this was the best weekend of my life. I'd have paid the ticket price alone to watch Slint but to get accommodation and a load of other bands thrown in was a bonus and a half. I managed to watch most of the acts, missing the first couple due to disorganisation of arrival times and the early acts of the days due to laziness. Highlights were Mogwai who played the best show I've seen them do, and they seemed like they were enjoying it too, The Melvins who absolutely ROCKED the place, Need New Body who had me tripping out at the back, Spoon just doing business as usual- fantastic, Deerhoof who were completely on fire, Matmos who had some crazy looking instrumentation on stage and Múm played a beautiful closing set and had everyone in the room lost in sound. Then of course there was Slint who played a fantastic set which all got a bit much for me with Washer and ended in tears. Then there was the bands I hadn't heard of! Early Man were a favourite, proper metal type stuff with twiddly riffs and general long hair waving, Pearls and Brass who do a sort of Sabbath type thing but different with lots of jumping about and some incredible musicianship and Bright Black who were just gorgeous and a great start to the day, opening on the Saturday. Other highlights were the sensory overload of Turkish Starwars on the Slint TV channel, and the various bad horror films chosen, such as Blood Fiend which involved a drug user some how having a turkey's head grafted onto his body and spending the rest of the film killing drug dealers and drinking their blood, all presented in a Twilight Zone fashion. Then there was Aidan Moffett performing totally unannounced with Mogwai! He played some nice DJ sets in between bands too. Theres also the small matter of standing next to Slint through the White Magic set. Which was amazing. The sound was fantastic throughout, with earthquaking bass (really!) and you could even understand the lyrics! The only disappointment of the weekend was Mark Kozelek cancelling. He was replaced with Sons and Daughters who I thought were very disappointing, after listening to the LP I thought they'd be a good live band but alas, no. Nevermind! I'm sure I've left loads out but all in all, it was a weekend I'll never forget. I'd like to thank ATP for making it possible for me to see Slint perform- something I never thought would happen. As they don't have a contact address on their site, I'll do it here, THANKS! I'll be there again next year! Just to end on a downer, it sucks to be home.
