All Tomorrow’s Parties
Nightmare Before Christmas
Pontins, Camber Sands
summary : ireallylovemusic's John Doran gives us the rundown on recent noisy happenings @ camber sandsDecember 3 - December 4 - December 5
December 5
Pelican arrived on a crest of feedback earlier this year with their astounding ‘Australasia’ long player. Taking Neurosis and Isis as their starting point they removed the vocal element from the equation and beefed up the guitars. On Sunday they arrive on a crest of technical problems unfortunately and they seem to be struggling with their sound But this is sorted by the second song causing a flustered looking Pontins official to run out of the room with his fingers in his ears. This is avant metal’s take on post rock and it sounds like it is being made by serious young men who think about mountains a lot. Ultimately awesome (in the original sense of the word).
Drone rock doomsters and arch enemies of sub editors everywhere Sunn O))) have played gigs before where they have stood behind a wall of amps for forty minutes with just a clenched fist rising into sight signalling the end of their set; so when a single repeated chord rings, ominously around an empty stage for quarter of an hour it is safe to presume that this is all that is going to happen. Luckily Steven O’Malley and Greg Anderton stride onto stage fully cowled, wearing monks’ robes and begin strumming their guitars at approximately 0.25 bpm. Out of the white noise they create a tone forms and after half an hour of playing the same note, the drone has become a suppurating beacon of horrific noise and almost unbearable. So they start playing the song’s ‘chorus’ and Attila Chisar, the original singer with notorious Nordic death metal group, Mayhem, comes on to add his tortured vocals (which owe much to the Hungarian folk tradition of making guttural noise with the back of the throat) to the sound. This is music as pure devotion; the rack of amps, the altar; the microphone the chalice; the Les Paul, the crozier; the drone, the chant of prayer etc. They are the Hell’s Angels of music: the true one percenter stuff. If you think anyone in your life is actually an undecomissioned replicant then make them go and watch Sunn O))) because they certainly are a test designed to provoke an emotional response. This is all too clear on the face of the middle aged woman who is checking photographers’ passes at the edge of the stage. “They don’t write ‘em like this any more, eh?” I yell to her in an attempt to lighten her mood. She attempts to smile back at me but just looks like she is about to burst into tears. Later, in the audience, an indie fan wails querulously “You suck!” obviously missing the safe certainties of a Mercury Rev set, say. He too looks like he is about to start crying but stands, mouth agape, staring at the stage for the rest of the gig. If Pelican represent the lush and natural sounds of some far distant planet, then Sunn O))) is the noise of its hellish night time.
Watching The Fall live is not similar to persuading a drunk to do something humiliating in return for a can of Special Brew, it is exactly like it. So let’s stop, eh? (Yeah, yeah, ‘Mr Pharmacist’ was brilliant but come on . . .)
Talking of drink and behaving with a transparent lack of dignity, The Violent Femmes provided this tired and emotional hack with his first proper excuse to cut some rug in some months and ended the Nightmare on a celebratory note. A superb set (i.e. the first album and ‘Country Death Song’) was rounded off by a cover of the festival’s titular Velvet Underground track.
The fact that they don’t have enough bands to fill both stages speaks volumes about ATP this time round. This is the third one they’ve held this year and it is in danger of seeming ubiquitous. It is the jewel in the crown of the festival season, let’s hope that they return to staging it just once a year so that its impact isn’t watered down. Also, what’s with the scenesters chosing the acts? I mean, who the fuck wants to know what bands Vincent Gallo is in to? This said, I’m guessing Stephen Pastel couldn’t have persuaded Slint to reform so count me in for next Easter.