Alternative & Indie Friday night, Les Savy Fav bring the glitz

This year's instalment of The Nightmare Before Christmas broke with tradition by having 3 curators, one for each day, in the form of Les Savy Fav, Battles, and Caribou. Together, they offered up an even more diverse line-up than usual, at a festival that is well known for eclectic selections of bands out of the mainstream. Each curator opted to do 2 shows, one to open the day, and one near the close, with no apparent restriction on entry to both as has happened in the past. As with the last event here, the organisers opted to use the 3 smaller stages (Centre, Reds and Crazy Horse) over the arena-like and less popular Pavilion Stage. The relative closeness of the stages makes for easy hopping between bands should you wish to catch a bit of everyone. As usual ATP represents a chance to broaden your musical horizons over those provided by major record labels; unofficially it has become known as the musician's or connoisseur's festival.

Not your usual icebreaker set to start things off on Friday; Les Savy Fav got proceedings off on Reds with a bang, kicking off an upbeat night of Alt Rock and punk sounds. My kind of Friday then, I'd basically highlighted everything on a makeshift clashfinder, cue much stage-hopping. Not one to spend much time onstage, (the security guards worst nightmare) Tim Harrington charged off into the audience at the earliest opportunity to showcase the spontaneous showmanship for which he is famous. Think climbing balconies, beer poured into gaping fans mouths from a kettle, beer throwing (photographers beware) and much more besides.

Floridians Surfer Blood continued the alternative sound, though more in the spirit of an opening set with their lighter and poppier Alt. sounds. The instrumental outfit The Budos Band provided a highly danceable set of their Afro-beat/ funk tunes for a change of genre, livening things up once more.

One of my more anticipated bands of the weekend were Wild Flag, any band with the likes of Sleater- Kinney, Autoclave and Helium on their CV's had to be a safe bet for a great live show. Sure enough a high energy set was played out on Centre Stage to an enthusiastic crowd, lots of guitar and pounding drums. 'Racehorse' a set highlight at the end, turning into a bit of a jam between guitarist Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss. American indie-rockers Archers of Loaf and post-hardcore band Hot Snakes later continued the energetic Rock theme.

Two-piece punksters No Age upped the ante once more with a thundering set on Reds, notable for an audience member as guest vocalist on a Black Flag cover. No previous singing experience was required. It's hard at times to imagine how just the two of them can generate so much noise.

Canadians Holy Fuck played out their unique electronica set on Reds, often using the unusual instruments for which they are famous; toy guns and the like. A band that could have quite easily slotted into the chosen line-ups of any of the three curators, and another popular set that had people dancing. The solitary long entry queue of the weekend I saw meant that some people had obviously missed out.

These all represented difficult acts to follow, but it seemed Les Savy Fav earlier show was nothing more than a gentle workout for what was to come. Cue much bacofoil, glitter, costume changing, silvery bouncing balloons and crowdsurfing for a spectacular closing set on Friday. At times Tim Harrington's anarchic antics have you so distracted it's easy to forget that they have some great tunes too. His vocal deteriorated to shoutiness by the end, but nobody cared I think. He mockingly counted down like its New Year, but it had that kind of party atmosphere about it too, if tongue-in-cheek. Lots of smiles and laughter as Tim Harrington took the show to the audience once more, my favourite set of the weekend personally.

Arguably the most fun night of the weekend anyway, and certainly the most full-on.

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