sheen

So, I just got back from ATP yesterday afternoon. It was the first time I had been to an ATP festival and certainly the first time I had ever been to Butlins. It was quite surreal... getting there in the first place was a bit of a nightmare and we had to hang around for hours waiting to check in and actually get into the chalet which was pretty scummy, but it was certainly better than a tent and pretty much what I had expected to be honest (a word of recommendation to anyone going to future events there, try and get a 6 person chalet because they were the deluxe ones).

On the Friday I managed to get exceptionally drunk, but I did see Conway Savage who was excellent and I managed to end up sitting about 3 feet away from Nick Cave who was there watching too. Then I saw some of The Only Ones (who kind of sucked) and I am told that I saw Dirty Three but can't honestly remember that much of the show...

Saturday was kind of a nightmare, we saw Low, Spiritualized Acoustic Mainline, Nick Cave then Grinderman, however for some reason no matter where I was standing some selfish cunt would seem to be not far away. For almost the entire way through Nick Cave I had a group of hoxton cunts taking speed and talking really loudly in front of me, so I moved and ended up next to some ridiculously drunk public school boys who preceded to jump up and down bumping into everyone in the near vicinity. I think part of the problem with festivals is that people will go regardless of who is playing, so the audience is made up of a large proportion of people who don't give a fuck about the band that is on. Then I lost at bingo and fell asleep before Einstrzende Neubauten (yeah, i'm so rock n roll).

Sunday was more of a success, although I would not recommend the space bowl slide in the swimming pool to my worst enemy, I thought I was going to drown as I whacked my head coming out of the slide and then fell head first into 2m of water... then I managed to stop halfway down the black hole, i guess i am too small to build up enough momentum to get down some slides so i had to shimmy most of the way on my arse... here's a pic of what an evil space bowl looks like (although it's not the exact one i was on)...



Anyways, the bands on Sunday were great I got to see Dirty Three again (and remember it this time!) Warren Ellis is my new favourite person, he is so funny and a total machine on the violin. Here are some pics I took:







and here is a short video I took with my camera:



Then I saw Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra, Cat Power then Nick Cave and Grinderman again! I made sure I was right at the front for Nick Cave that time so no stupid cunts could spoil it. Here are some pics:







I'm told that the set up is quite different from the previous Thurston Moore ATP that was also at the same location, they now have an even bigger stage set up in the main skyline pavilion shopping area, instead of just the smaller centre stage and reds. I didn't have any trouble getting to see everyone i wanted too, and there weren't too many set clashes. Although I was sad i missed Yann Tierson, but Nick Cave was far more important!

They were also screening loads of awesome movies at the cinema when we were there, that were also picked by Dirty Three... loads of Kurosawa, Polanski and Jean-Pierre Melville.

If anyone is going to the ATP vs. The Fans in a few weeks, I would say book the coach running from Taunton station to Butlins because the queue for the local bus service was HUGE and there was only 1 an hour. Also, for ages on the ATP site it said check in was at 9am, but when we got there they told us it wasn't til 2pm and we couldn't even get into the chalet until 4pm... take tea towels, washing up liquid, sponge, loo roll, bath towels and all other toiletries because NOTHING was provided at all and we ended up spending a fortune at Tesco. Also, they never checked bags or pockets so it was really easy to smuggle booze into the venue to avoid the over inflated drinks prices....