Wilco @ ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES

[Welsh Rich]

 

No worries - the Wilco review was full of fan boy excitment so read a bit like that. I've edited myself now - must calm down

 

Band of Horses = awesome. Well worth checking out, got a lot of love on VC last year when it came out.

[m_thomp]

The Twisted Ear team has finally put down the tv remote and pooled its efforts to knock up a review of ATP vs The Fans. You can read the whole of the review below, or for those with an attention disorder and a need of pretty pictures, you can read the ATP festival review here.

 

Meanwhile, here's the good stuff:

 

Friday

 

Daniel Johnston is not much of a guitarist, and his vocals could probably be questioned as well. But the occasional bum note and the toothless lisp he has acquired since his earliest recordings do little to hide the fact that he is a genuine talent with a knack for melodies that are engaging and lyrics that are disarming. You listen to his songs and every so often a phrase will strike you - something honest, something painful, something you can immediately identify with - and that is the beauty of his songwriting; that is why so many other artists - Teenage Fanclub, Tom Waits, Beck, Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips - have covered his music. Watching him perform on ATP's Centre Stage (one of the two entertainment venues/nightclubs at Butlins being used as stages) is a strange experience: he is visibly nervous and has his songs in front of him on a music stand; he shakes noticeably, especially during his final song, Devil Town, where he grips the microphone stand as if he might fall over without it. He seems thrilled to be onstage as well as nervous and thanks the crowd towards the end, saying that he's going to keep practicing in the hope that one day he'll make it. On this afternoon's evidence, though, he already has.

 

ATP's main stage is in a food court-slash-entertainment centre, flanked by a children's ball pit, a Pizza Hut, a Burger King and various slot machines, including a facility where you can stuff your own soft toy for the bargain price of, er, twenty pounds. Look above your head in Butlins' Skyline Pavillion and you'll see jaded old helium-filled foil balloons that have floated up there, clinging to the ceiling as if bidding to make their escape. It's a feeling that's no doubt familiar to hundreds of thousands of harrassed parents that bring their tartrazined children here every year and it is a bizarre setting for a music festival - it's like watching a gig at a motorway service station, and the ceiling is so high that the sound during Yo La Tengo's set is all over the place, the acoustics of the Pavillion at odds with their squalls of noise and sweet, crooked tunes. They jokingly marvel at the Skyline's, ah, skyline, comparing it to that of New York: they will not be the first band to comment on these surreal surroundings over the weekend. They are the opening act in the Pavillion and their set is well-received, but the best bit comes after they've gone offstage and returned with Daniel Johnston, who sings Speeding Motorcycle - one of his songs that Yo La Tengo covered in 1990 - with them.

 

A he or a they? A he or a they? A he, really, given that Sparklehorse is essentially Mark Linkous and whoever he has with him at the time - in this case, not a full band but someone on keyboards and a couple of laptops. It is a subdued, downtempo set that would have sounded absolutely gorgeous in a smaller venue but it gets a little lost in the depths of the cavernous Centre Stage, which is a pity. Don't Take My Sunshine Away sounds nice, though.

 

You'd think that Death Vessel might be some sort of scary Danish heavy metal band with a penchant for songs about innards and goat-murdering, but no. Death Vessel is Joel Thibodeau of Brooklyn, who plays gentle folk songs and sings like a girl. There's quite a lot of chitter-chatter in Reds as Thibodeau takes to the stage, but the moment he opens his mouth it ebbs away. His singing is arresting and lovely and seems completely at odds with the lurid settings of the venue, where everything is bright red and feels like a tacky strip club or similar (though actually, it's The Home Of The Redcoats). "I think I'd fancy him if I closed my eyes," remarks one chap. Quite.

 

"So anyway, I arrive at London station and, um, I'm seeing pictures of this girl, Maddy. Um, who is this Maddy?" Oops - Minehead, we have a problem. It's not the rapper's fault to unknowingly comment on a missing girl amidst the current media shitstorm. In fact it probably needed saying to burst the emotional cocoon we've been wrapped in. Still, one or two detractors aside, Subtitle makes for a welcome break from the usual guitar pantomimes, firing off a whirlwind delivery that, just like Buck 65, rides the beat with rollercoaster subtlety. Only he's quicker, much quicker. Especially when he blazes through a few set-closing acapella bouts. After a shaky entrance, and with a barnet style and size last seen on House Party's Kid, he brings the Reds Stage to its feet, and the house down. Smart, affable and unabashedly jovial, Subtitle proves not just a privilege for the hard of hearing.

 

Saturday

 

It would be a shameful and unforgiveable clich