80p

i must be getting old cos the year is flying by and i'm sleeping in a proper bed and sitting watching tv over breakfast at a music festival. i've wanted to go to an ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES gig for years, i remember when i got sent a letter from the belle and sebastien fanclub telling me how they were taking over camber sands and thinking how lovely an idea that was. finances, fear and lack of likeminded friends have prevented me from going before so this is my first. although i've seen people's photos and heard stories nothing quite prepared me for the surreal experience of indie kids taking over a butlins. the chalets were quite modern and basic and inside was like a shopping centre, filled with slot machines and tacky eateries. it was however, ideal for a music festival. butlins being a place of "light entertainment for all ages" there are little stages everywhere. there is a jumpin' jaks, ferfuckssake, they are more than geared up to have people performing all over the place. its also amazing for the use of your time. rather than trekking back to your tent and putting half an hour aside for that and (often) raking through the mud it was a 5 min hop back to the chalet on proper pathways, the entire venue was indoors so the weekend's wet weather didn't have an effect on the ability to watch the acts and there were plenty of places to sit down (i am getting old). another plus point was the amount of stuff to do in the downtime, they had a proper little cinema (all curated by the breeders) and i found that if i was waning a little pop into the cinema was better than a kip to recharge the batteries. an amazing discovery was that not just the bands but the whole site had been curated by the breeders, including a breeders tv channel. this was not just the icing on the cake but the cherry on top and the silver ball balanced on the cherry. what's the betting that the deal sisters like some amazing things like psychadelic czech cartoons and soul train and feminist documentaries?! speaking of which, there was a massive dykey contingent at the festival which made me very happy indeed, it truly felt like one of those places we belonged. everyone seemed nice and there weren't too many trindies (trendy indies) dominating it all and we got to the front for everything. ace! anne and helen from PEPPERMINT PATTI were the facilititators to all this joy, they are our lovely generous friends and if they hadn't bought the tickets in a job lot we could not have thought about going. since all the horrible housemate craziness of a couple of years ago money has been tight, tighter now i'm just reliant on chapter for money so i am forever appreciative to them for helping us out like this. it just worked out brilliantly, not only do they have similar music tastes to us, but they also weren't up for too much ker-azy rocknroll partying behaviour and just really wanted to see the bands. they were pretty much the perfect holiday partners and i hope we get to go to many adventures with them in the future.

but on to the bands. my ATP raison d'etre was seeing THROWING MUSES. they had been one of those bands i'd got into when i was a teenager that no-one i knew liked, i bought an album from DIVERSE records in newport, the man there said it was good. i then bought every album by them and kirsten hersh i could find. back in t'day before t'splinternet this meant going to every record st0re i came across and looking through the racks and asking people. kirsten hersh's "hips and makers" album in particular got me through a rought spot and continues to elicit powerful emotions within a few chords to this day. they split before i had chance to see them so i was mighty excited. they were the first band we watched, on at 7.3opm on friday and naturally enough they were brilliant. her voice has this amazing power, she was so poised and they all seemed to be having fun. it was an early highlight for me. i could pretty much go home happy based on this moment alone so it boded well for a great festival. after this we ran upstairs to see YANN TIERSEN. steen was looking forward to seeing him but i recognised the name but didn't think i was familiar with his stuff, but he turned out to be the man who wrote the amelie soundtrack. pretty famous, then. i was mostly struck by the fact that MATT ELLIOTT, who we had seen last month in buffalo was on stage with him. later in the festival i embarrassed myself by going up to the merch desk and smugly pronounced "got it got it got it!" to his cds for sale. steen tapped me on the shoulder "he's right there...". we had a chat about the cardiff gig and he asked me if i was the mad fan who was yelling at him onstage. i wasn't. we then took a break and went down stairs to play a putting game and try and find an air hockey table that wasn't being used and heard a bit of BON IVER. meh. MR LIF on the way to PIT ER PAT, who i was a little disappointed with but still on the massive high from throwing muses it didn't phase anything. we went to bed happy and with loads to look forward to.

in the morning a quick jaunt to tesco to pick up things for an ace breakfast to eat whilst watching princess mononoke, catch up with some friends (charlotte, unlike idiot me, remembered her knitting and was going to kelley deal's knitting class) and then go and start watching bands i'd mostly not heard of. never a bad thing. WHISPERTOWN 2000 were a folky act with two ladies and ok, BLOOD RED SHOES were a boy and girl team in a sort of reverse white stripes and they were all right but seemed a bit dwarfed by the massive stage. we did better with TH' FAITH HEALERS, who apparently hadn't played together since they toured with the breeders in 1994. they were very of their time, a real ladyfesty 90s grunge band but, hey, i like that sort of thing and they were great to watch. it was the first great surprise of the day. we saw our friend beth there, who drunkenly informed us that her plan today was to "rape CSS" which was a good reminder that they were about to start downstairs. i had somehow completely forgotten about css. i'd liked their songs but never got the album, a fact that stuns me. i think i had worried they had been overhyped and some of the people who went on about them were the type who jump on any bandwagon that comes into town. whilst watching them i relinquished any kind of suspicion, they were great. they filled the stage with balloons and were a really nice change of pace to all the guitar and noise that was going on around the festival. we skipped upstairs, still dancing on the way to WIRE, who truly did typify all the noise and darkness, but they exemplified the style. they were amazingly intense and the bass throbbed right through me. after that it was time for a food break. we sat eating chips whilst listening to TEENAGE FANCLUB. their set reminded me why i liked them and i surprised myself by tearing up during "your love is the place where i come from". onwards, to THE BREEDERS themselves! we all went to the front, helen was especially excited, and they rewarded us by playing a wonderful set. the voices of the deal sisters were so pure, i was shocked that they could sound that good live. they were warm and gorgeous and made it feel like it was a tiny venue and we were all their mates. glorious. will ran upstairs to see TRICKY and i followed him up after. i've always found his voice very very sexy, he guested on WHALE's "we care" album that i played to death when i was at school, which is how i got into him and i've tried to buy everything since. clearly a man who looks after himself, he looked like a beautiful twisting snake, front of stage, goading the audience and giving in and diving into the baited mass. we had another break before going to see ZACH HILL. maybe it was the late hour, but boy did i find him tedious. i was really excited about seeing him but i arrived and it was just a bloke having a spinal tap moment ("hey won't it be great, right, if i just play drums for an hour." "an hour, zach?" "yeah, it'll be great"...). i fell asleep on a chair. we then dashed over to see THE FROGS play a very amusing set of silly punk songs. they were great but i didn't have the staying power and went back to zach hill for more of a kip. happily i awoke in time to see MARIACHI EL BRONX. we'd unhappily missed them do their punk set on friday but this was their version of a mariachi band and very good it was too. the lead singer was a bit of a crooner and they brought on the deal sisters to sing with them on at the end, which was a lovely treat. by this point i needed a little lay down but didn't want to go to bed and lose momentum so we decided to try out the cinema stage where THE EXORCIST was playing. i saw a great documentary about this years ago but the only time i'd seen it all the way through was when i was 18 and it was re-released after being banned for years and i thought it was dated and not scary at all. this time it was scary. we ended up unable to leave in order to get that feeling of resolution and good conquering evil back in our hearts and missed a lot of HOLY FUCK who we were really looking foward to. they did sound rather ace, a lot like the experience we had when we saw FUCK BUTTONS in venn last year. ahhh, bedtime. we decided to eschew the hours of dancing for a more productive sunday, i just wanted to fall asleep next to steen very happy.

on sunday we had a brunchy morning of sleeping in and eating pizza in front of more excellent deal sisters tv. we started with a bit of crazy golf and then TIMES NEW VIKING. we loved them when we saw them last year in clwb ifor bach and they were just as good here, if a little less intimate. we then headed downstairs for a bit of catching up with mates and watching a bit of HEARTLESS BASTARDS who belied their name by being very soft alt country. we then ran back for DINOGRAPH, who were really great and did great banter. this was all just a prelude to the exciting act of the day which was MELT BANANA. they came on illuminated by mere pit helmets and the lead singer ran around the stage screaming in japanese, only identifiable by the lights, they looked like two dogs fighting on stage. amazing! steen was especially pleased when they did the cover of a specials song. i think by this point we'd got a bit to a bit of a saturation point cos we didn't have much staying power for DEERHUNTER, it was very difficult to follow melt banana, even if they did have kim deal on stage with them for a bit and were very smiley. we went upstairs for some genuine heart and big grins with KIMYA DAWSON. i wasn't madly excited about this since i've seen her a few times but that quickly turned to butterflies when she came on stage. she sings brutally honest songs about raw emotions and was tonight showcasing a bunch of ditties she'd written for her baby daughter, all of which i'd seen before but it was still a brilliant lovely set. i am so in awe of her. she got 3 fans on stage with her (one of whom gushed "i love you, i love you so much" and did chunk-style dancing during her songs) and got everyone into a group hug at the end. kimya gigs always feel like group therapy and that is no bad thing. we took another break to see the brilliant documentary ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL in the cinema before heading down for FOALS. they were another band i had snobbily dismissed as "probably good but it seems only people who overegg the pudding like them". well, tan my hide for a second time cos i very much enjoyed them. they seemed to be exactly what i wanted at that point, a bit of dancey math rock. we just had chance to catch a bit of DISTORTION FELIX, who specialised in really good heavy sludge rock but were the politest band of the festival. onward! for the evening was late and it was decision time too, we had decided to leave in the night before the rush of the morning so we had to work out when. i'd managed to get someone to cover me in work on the monday but it was still probably the best way, we'd only have to get up early anyway to check out on time and then get stuck in traffic but we had to choose our moment. after much debate it was decided to be after X, missing TUNEYARDS but no drama there, we'd had an amazing time and apart from FUCK BUTTONS djing it was the last thing we wanted to see. X were worth staying for, a punk band from the 70s with a lady poet singer i'd not heard of before, for shame. steen described them spot on as a band formed from TWIN PEAKS, they were each a little odd. the guitarist's face was fixed on an unnerving grin staring out at audience members like a shark mouthing "hi" and making them freak out. it was great. at the end, trying to edge out helen spotted kelley deal knelt on the side of the stage watching excitedly. at the end she picked up the set list shouting "its mine! you're not having it!" playfully to the audience. a brilliant way to finish the festival. we trumped out giddy with happiness ready to hit the road back to cardiff. i tried to stay awake for the patti ladies to talk the journey away but my car narcolepsy got the better of me and i was out in minutes.