Curated by Les Savy Fav
Can a festival make you acutely physically aware of the ageing process? Well, yes and no, as it turns out. All Tomorrow's Parties entering its second decade might have that effect for those of us who were present for its inaugural edition way back in the giddy days of 2000. But when it comes to this year's first evening curators and headliners, Les Savy Fav, you'll be jumping around like a starfish being chased by a hammer-wielding maniac regardless of grey hair ratios.
More of that later, though, because first there's the small matter of a dozen or so acts of chiefly American origin that the Brooklyn bill-toppers have selected (granted, LSF also play an early set, first on at 5pm, but it's not the right time for this kind of madness – only post-midnight can do them justice). The eponymous party doesn't really get started until Baltimore math-rock pranksters OXES stride onstage at Reds, with only one of history's most hideous tracksuits and a bunch of idiosyncratic metallic riffage for weapons. We somehow conspire to miss their head-and-shoulders standout tune 'Boss Kitty', but the instrumentalists prove, perhaps for the first time, more than one-trick bovines.
Across at Crazy Horse, Future Islands are tearing it up while concurrently failing to convince of any lasting impact beyond the impassioned histrionics of singer Samuel T Herring. Hipper and younger cads than us probably understand, but then the same people are probably No Age devotees, and we can't argue with their logic on the latter's showing in Reds, veritably buzzing through perfect nodules of fuzz-pop slackerdom.
Reunited punk 'n' rollers Hot Snakes kick off the business end of the evening over on the Centre Stage and a welcome return it is too. John 'Speedo' Reis – of Rocket From The Crypt fame – may have gained 10 years but he's lost just as many pounds, a lean leader with tongue still sharp.
Les Savy Fav are veterans of more ATP festivals than our rum-addled brain can recall without a fistful of schedules and an abacus. But they just can't fail to put on utterly compulsive viewing that most similar stalwarts of the festival can't conduct (and some people here have probably seen Chicago's greatest living rock band Shellac more times at ATP during the past decade than they've visited their own families). Tim Harrington is on inspirational frontman duties, dousing himself – and everyone within a half-mile radius – in glitter while clad in a negligée your auntie would leave on the rack for tackiness. Several days later we're still picking glitter out of every pocket/wallet cranny/orifice. As so many ATP headline sets in the past, this feels like the culmination of something noteworthy. A 'career', if we must call it that, spent on an upward trajectory so subtle that nobody noticed them become every facetious indie-rocker's favourite band. It's a triumph, a grin-inducing spectacle and reminds us how Les Savy Fav's back catalogue has the power to pull just about every sensation at emotional gunpoint while forcing you to dance like the world might fall of its axis if you halted. Either that or the rum had got to us again.
Words by Adam Anonymous
Photos by Duncan Elliott
For a photo gallery of Friday at ATP, click HERE.
More of that later, though, because first there's the small matter of a dozen or so acts of chiefly American origin that the Brooklyn bill-toppers have selected (granted, LSF also play an early set, first on at 5pm, but it's not the right time for this kind of madness – only post-midnight can do them justice). The eponymous party doesn't really get started until Baltimore math-rock pranksters OXES stride onstage at Reds, with only one of history's most hideous tracksuits and a bunch of idiosyncratic metallic riffage for weapons. We somehow conspire to miss their head-and-shoulders standout tune 'Boss Kitty', but the instrumentalists prove, perhaps for the first time, more than one-trick bovines.
Across at Crazy Horse, Future Islands are tearing it up while concurrently failing to convince of any lasting impact beyond the impassioned histrionics of singer Samuel T Herring. Hipper and younger cads than us probably understand, but then the same people are probably No Age devotees, and we can't argue with their logic on the latter's showing in Reds, veritably buzzing through perfect nodules of fuzz-pop slackerdom.
Reunited punk 'n' rollers Hot Snakes kick off the business end of the evening over on the Centre Stage and a welcome return it is too. John 'Speedo' Reis – of Rocket From The Crypt fame – may have gained 10 years but he's lost just as many pounds, a lean leader with tongue still sharp.
Les Savy Fav are veterans of more ATP festivals than our rum-addled brain can recall without a fistful of schedules and an abacus. But they just can't fail to put on utterly compulsive viewing that most similar stalwarts of the festival can't conduct (and some people here have probably seen Chicago's greatest living rock band Shellac more times at ATP during the past decade than they've visited their own families). Tim Harrington is on inspirational frontman duties, dousing himself – and everyone within a half-mile radius – in glitter while clad in a negligée your auntie would leave on the rack for tackiness. Several days later we're still picking glitter out of every pocket/wallet cranny/orifice. As so many ATP headline sets in the past, this feels like the culmination of something noteworthy. A 'career', if we must call it that, spent on an upward trajectory so subtle that nobody noticed them become every facetious indie-rocker's favourite band. It's a triumph, a grin-inducing spectacle and reminds us how Les Savy Fav's back catalogue has the power to pull just about every sensation at emotional gunpoint while forcing you to dance like the world might fall of its axis if you halted. Either that or the rum had got to us again.
Words by Adam Anonymous
Photos by Duncan Elliott
For a photo gallery of Friday at ATP, click HERE.
Les Savy Fav
