All Tomorrow’s Parties – Breeders weekend

Posted by jill on May 17, 2009

My first ATP at Minehead and my first weekend at Minehead. In some ways, I went to the ‘wrong’ ATP, the previous weekend, the ATP vs. the fans weekend, had more bands that I would like to see. However, this turned into an advantage, as I didn’t end up wanting to be in two places at the same time, and had plenty of time to take it easy.

The weekend can be very clearly divided into two halves, with Holy Fuck being the turning point. Before Holy Fuck, the weekend seemed a bit lacklustre. At times, we preferred to sit and watch TV in the chalet rather than go to watch some bands. in fact, the only two memorable musical things about Friday was Mr Lif’s shower song and Pit Er Pat. Saturday started in a similar way, Shellac were good,  Zach Hill was disappointing,  we danced to Cannonball by the Breeders and made a good discovery in the form of Styrofoam. But there was nothing worth a ‘Wow’.

Of all the bands playing this weekend, Holy Fuck were the ones I wanted to see the most, and their set lived up to the expectations. Blasting their way through the album, it seemed like the whole of ATP were in the room.

Maybe their set had me in a great mood for the rest of the weekend, and as a result I unexpectedly enjoyed Deerhunter, Times New Viking and The Soft Pack. The final highlights of the weekend were Melt Banana (especially the torch lead opening few minutes and a cute cover of the Specials) and dancing at the front for Foals.