Jens Lekman. All photographs by Rich Thane.
Another year, another great weekend of ATP action. This was the first year TLOBF have covered it properly, with press passes and everything, so it was a slightly more distancing experience. Staying in a (rather splendid) B&B about 10 mins walk away from the Butlins site itself, our morning stroll along the sea front a breath of fresh air to clear the residual hangover each morning (well, afternoon really…).
Explosions in the Sky had managed to bring a lot of bands from across the globe together for this weekend. There were barely a home-grown act amongst the line-up, the bands flown across from Japan, America and Canada for our listening pleasure. The best sign though was how great the first act on each of the days were. Our Friday pilgrimage was finished by the dirty rock ‘n roll of The Constantines. Lead singer Bry Webb deciding that he needed a hair cut, taking chunks out of his hair between chords. Saturday saw the raucous gypsy-noise of A Hawk and a Hacksaw, blasting away the remnants of the night before, causing people to spontaneously dance at 4pm in the afternoon. It was the turn of the nicest man in Sweden, Jens Lekman, to woo the crowd on Sunday. A perfect slice of sunshine filled pop, his delicate picking out of chords from the air, twisted with his spoken interludes of ‘Postcard to Nina’ sending the crowd into equal measures of applause and laughter. He also had the best looking backing band of the weekend…
Around these opening blasts of aural pleasure were massive highlights from more established acts. The curators wowed the crowd Friday night, their superbly evocative ‘Birth and Death of the Day’ sending shivers down my spine, whilst The National on Saturday night blew the crowd away with their incredibly intense performance. Matt Berninger prowling the stage, his growling voice arcing out of the confines of the Pavilion stage and out into the night air. Broken Social Scene set the same stage alight with their joyous indie-noise-pop. The stage being swapped by guest stars at one point with members of EITS, The National, Constantines and J Mascis all joining them for a slice of Kevin Drew’s ‘Back out on the Cocks’.
Brendan Canning, Broken Social Scene
We weren’t just blessed with skinny guys with guitar bands either. Ghostface Killah on the Saturday afternoon put on an eclectic show of hip-hop, the surreal site of indie-chicks dancing to ‘Greedy Bitches’ will stick in my mind for years to come, as will his posse selling CD-R’s of the Wu-Tang back catalog to anyone who stopped near them.
Beyond that were ear bathing sets from Silver Jews, whose gloriously lyrical Americana and exceedingly dry sense of humour kept everyone amused for their set. The augmented Beach House which included a live drummer and, for one song only, a bassist nicely fleshed out their usually quiet songs. Victoria has become comfortable with her voice to such an extent that the vocals now carry an added edge and depth that’s broken free of the records. Iron & Wine’s recent dubious live form was realised with much of their set consisting of extended jams of established songs. But the bones of the songs were still wonderfully rich slices of World-tinged country.
Alex Scally, Beach House
There was a bit of a hassle with Battles, which is a bit too tiresome to go into here, but at least we got it to see them on Sunday. Which was good because I would have missed the ending of all festivals. Plenty has been written about their great live show, but they lived up, and beyond, it. ‘Atlas’ has become some weirdly mad anthem, the site of people dancing like loons to it will stick with me. The floor bouncing as layer upon layer of their perverted music was woven together.
Every festival must have its down side though. Sunset Rubdown were boringly flat, and noticeably struggled with their sound. Western Keys, who were making their UK debut, sounded unimaginative and one-paced whilst Phosphorescence were on so late that people were falling asleep to his go slow routine. And the queuing for Battles was just stupid and poorly communicated. Other than that, the lack of stuff on at the Red’s Stage also didn’t make sense, but there we go.
Another year, another great weekend of ATP action. Honestly, I don’t think I can go to another festival ever again.
Hungry for more ATP? Check out our photo specials from the event: Friday 16th May, Saturday 17th May.
Or check out our the previous weekends ATP vs Pitchfork coverage here & here.
Battles
May 21st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
i loved ittt this year, but all the stage times and places did seem a little kerfuffled!
May 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
you know, i really bloody missed my b&b breakfast this morning. mmmmmmmmmm. great review – summed it up perfectly and for once sir, i pretty much agree with you on…everything. jeeeeez.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
It’s sheer cruelty posting this (and the brill pics) on my first post-ATP office day.
What a great weekend. For me it was all about the Japanese bands – World’s End Girlfriend, Mono, and Envy were all awesome. Envy rounded off our weekend in incredible fashion, in fact, and were probably the top band of the whole thing. To be able to get that ludicrous volume but still convey really beauty in what they do is just astonishing. Other highlights were Okkervil River (and, of course, saying hi to their lead singer at the service station on the way home), Silver Jews (why hasn’t this band been in my life much much earlier?), The Drift, … Trail of Dead and Ola Podrina.
Now, how soon are they announcing Nightmare Before Christmas – I need to start saving up!
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
summed up very well, and great great photos there too rich. i was at the front a fair few times for some of those bands and must’ve seen you (i made it my business to familarise every photographer in the pit and their kit ;))
anyway, my highlights:
- atlas sound (sampled noise galore, and even joined by members of broadcast)
- jens lekman (charming, funny, uplifting. perfect sunday start)
- stars of the lid (gorgeous drones of joy)
- trail of dead (took me back to being a teenager again)
- de la soul (awwr yeah)
- battles (1st night, for “HI LO” alone)
- eluvium (simple, quiet beauty)
lowlights:
- broken social scene (maybe i’m just too used to seeing them with more than 10+ members but they felt stripped bare)
- adem (there’s just something about adem i can’t stand…)
- okkervil river (yawn)
- hawk & hacksaw (hear one song, and you’ve heard them all)
- explosions in the sky (just didn’t feel them. really dull and poor sound)
- battles fiasco 2nd night,.. seeing that long queue, but still making it in afterwards.
saw mono/worlds end gf/envy eating in KFC on the way back… i asked them if they had heard of a band called mogwai… i don’t think they really got it. mm.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
cheers ama! yeah, i must have seen you then. glad you had a good time. shame we didnt hook up for a pint. totally agree on adem. i took an instant dislike to this guy, three reasons. his T-Shirt was vile. he looks like moby. and he went over his set time by about 25 minutes cos he couldnt get the microphone for his ukelele to work. Surely good enough reasons no?
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Envy have supported Mogwai!
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I still haven’t fully recovered from this weekend. I really enjoyed meeting Rich and Rich but not as much as Four Tet.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
^you bastard. meeting you was the highlight of my weekend. scrap that. the highlight of my year so far.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
^Jude, i was being very tounge in cheek when i said… and i was more directing the comments towards mono. envy were so good for the 5 minutes i saw them and then realised i could get into battles. i got greedy :(
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Hehe, tongue in cheek doesn’t always come across on the internet, does it – sorry! Envy were seriously amazing, and we got to witness their whole set as we’d seen Battles twice before so sacrificed a 3rd bite of the cherry, amazing though they are…
I’m going to stop looking at this thread, it makes me really nostalgic for ATP already. When are then announcing Nightmare Before Christmas, that’s what I need to know?
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
don’t know about nightmare, but it would be fun to speculate who’ll be currating it.
i reckon broken social scene will be given a shot one of these days…
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The Line Of Best Fit? Well, if Pitchfork can…
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
amatp
rolls right off the tounge…
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:59 am
Hey, guys.
I have to completely agree with “Jude” above. I could feel the “Japanese Invasion” thing at the ATP. And all three jap bands performed fantastic. It’s a shame though that Mono’s “You die” t-shirts sold out so quickly! :(
What a great weekend…
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:09 am
I must go to one of these sooner or later.
Great shots throughout Rich!
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
thanks vale! you should come with us next year! although, surely you’ll need tabout 50 rolls of film or something….you should switch to digital!
May 25th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
@ama: I’ve never understood, why Mono is always compared to Mogwai? Having seen Mogwai 2x and Mono 5x, all I can say is that Mono is completely different, and especially live, Mono is so much more intense and unique…
May 25th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
All good,superb weekend amazing bands and pretty good weather.In order of excellence……. Sunset rubdown,(been listening to this band now for a year)emotive ,inventive and not at all flat they tried hard considering the fact they had an awkward start.Okkervill river,again lot’s of expectations and seriously fulfilled.They have playing for quite some time now and previous offerings have never sounded so buoyant.Graet sound and a passionate performance.The National(I have been a fan for some 8 years and they have never been fully appreciated for the great band they are).They blew the roof of the main arena and were everything a21 century rock should be.Poised inflective intelligent commanding and so musical.I hope for one,that they never loose that atmoespheric cult like ambience that they manage to create live on stage.I’m not sure if playing Hyde Park later on this year is the right thing to do,but hey ho everybody needs to earn a buck. Broken social scene are always amazing Kevin Drew and his pals are so infectious and positive long may they continue.Nice to see members of Stars with them on this leg of the European tour.A fine weekend with no trouble and a wonderfully calm atmosphere.
May 26th, 2008 at 12:59 am
andi, i used to be a mono fan but let’s face it, they are nothing new/original… if you listen to parts of ‘one step more and you *die*’, you can categorically hear specific parts of ‘come on *die* young’. off the top of my head, they have even have a song called “2 candles 1 wish” for crying out loud (aka mogwai’s 2 rights make 1 wrong) .. and one of their songs sound exactly like “moya” by gybe.
they just seem to be a bunch of rip-offs in my opinion and that main guitarist just seems prententious and contrived (with those hand movements, eesh). and everyone i know who’s seen them live seem to only praise for being able to play loud. and there’s no talent in turning up your amps and PA system :)
but hey, opinions and all that etc etc.