Review

With not a red coat in sight, the strangest place and time for a festival has to be Butlins in mid December. Consider it even stranger that the event is curated by Sonic Youth’s Thurnston Moore, who brings it upon himself to liven up the seaside resort of Minehead with some widely different bands.

The majority of them are American, as he says “[I] was wanting to bring music to the UK that doesn’t necessarily get here very readily. Which means a lot of great UK-side groups aren’t represented”. Fair dos. Some of the bands are more well known; the mighty Melvins, Dinosaur Jr and headliners Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop And The Stooges, and then there’s the really obscure acts like The Skaters, My Cat Is An Alien, and Wolf Eyes, all of which can just appear as noise to the untrained ear. Add to that even more established greats like Gang Of Four, MC5/DKT and Negative Approach and you have a real ear bashing of a weekend away.

The ticket price of around £135 includes three nights accommodation in a chalet within Butlins, ranging in size from two berth upwards, plus a festival wristband. The capacity is 6,000 with guests and artists, but that is for all of the three indoor venues. Because of the size of the main venue, there are two options; headliners Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop And The Stooges play both on Friday (Option 1), then to allow others to see them Sonic Youth headline the Saturday and The Stooges on the Sunday (Option 2).

The main venue, Centre Stage, only holds 2,800 people, and this is to include staff etc. Therefore the venue is emptied before the headliners set each day to filter in the people with the correct wristband for their chosen option, which can be a nightmare in itself (there is not a lot of communication with the customers as to who can get in). Usually though many people see the queue and opt for another of the venues. Every time there was no problem with getting in; though it seems it at first as the queue goes all the way around the indoor part of the resort, we managed to get in and see both bands on all three nights.

Reds, the second venue, is just outside the main marquee and has a bright, star theme and is a little trippy to walk into, being mainly red, glitzy and full again of arcade machines. Bands like Astray Navigation, Bardo Pond, Comets On Fire and Be Your Own Pet grace this stage over the three days.

The smallest of the venues is at the other end of the marquee, a place called Crazy Horse which has a theme of cowboys and indians (but still has the obligatory arcades). Here are some of the more obscure acts like Sunburned Hand Of Man, Lambsbread and Magik Markers.

Outside the venues are many places to eat and drink; Bar Rosso, Finnigans fish and chips, Burger King, Pizza Hut and others. In the centre of the huge marquee that housed all of these eateries is a bungee trampoline and enough arcade machines to make Las Vegas look drab.

Obviously a lot of people go to see the main acts in the large venue, which has no distinguishable theme but looks like a resort cabaret/bingo room (with, yes, more arcades), but some shun this in favour of puzzling over the strange noises floating from the surrounding places. Personally we miss sharing the experience with the latter, choosing instead to listen to the melodies contained within the noises from the main room. Luckily we get to see Flipper, a slacker grunge band which Kurt Cobain liked (Krist Novaselic is their bassist at present) and the ageing but brilliant Gang Of Four. My personal favourites are The Melvins, who along with Deerhoof get to play a second set before the original line up on the Saturday (Dinosaur Jr do this the following day).

As for the bands; Sonic Youth played two blinding sets with Kim Gordon taking the lead in a gold dress. They were present at the side of the stage for some of the shows, most notably Negative Approach. The pre-mentioned band in fact are a angry punk band which split up the sound from the experimental angry shouting of Wolf Eyes and brings with it a bit more structure. Iggy Pop is the grand frontman as always; for both sets he jumps in the crowd, invites the audience onstage and generally does not care about how far his pants fall down around his old tanned bottom. Dinosaur Jr and The Melvins draw huge crowds for both their sets, surprisingly many people turn up for the pre-line up sets which are poorly advertised. Veterans Gang Of Four and DKT/MC5 also show that their rock and roll is still alive and kicking, with DKT/MC5 featuring another grunge favourite in the form of guest vocals from Mudhoney’s Mark Arm.

The show times are different to those at a typically English festival; although the resort is out of the centre of Minehead it is still strange to have the bands start at around 4pm and finish at 1 or 2am. Problems arise when you want to catch MC5 at midnight but have bought enough booze to drown a camel, and with the shunting about between the late night headliners it’s a wonder that many get back in. There was reportably a problem with the security being too heavy handed and not well informed, but overall the system seemed to work and many people get to see who they want.

All Tomorrow's Parties is a good way for festival junkies to get a fix towards the end of the year, if a little odd.

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