Friday 19/05/06 All Tomorrow's Parties @ Pontins, Camber Sands

Friday:
To refresh ourselves, Gigwise spends the days in between ATP convalescing in a camper van parked near the power station at Dungeness in close proximity to Derek Jarman’s wonderfully alien garden. Fully bewildered, we arrive to sample sections of Dinosaur Jr.’s record collection. Off to a blistering start, we miss Lightning Bolt but it’s ok, as they’re playing another 793 times this weekend. Mt. Eerie/The Microphones offer a drummer, percussionist, 3 guitars and a bass and play an out-of-tune stifled messy airless rock music. Its crap. It really is completely out of tune and we’re not talking Sonic Youth or improv here. Just out of tune. Which is a shame cos we really like the name. Dead Meadow are much better setting up their riffs and just running with it. They have a ludicrously athletic drummer and this is driven propulsive rhythmic rock that gets the front rows grooving nicely. Magik Markers reappear and continue to be as crap as they were last week. And then, through the mists of time, step what appear to be a somewhat aged pub rock band. This is The Bevis Frond- a name to millions and unheard by all of them. Until now. We prepare ourselves for hysterics only to find that The Frond (as it were) launch themselves into some skyscraping old school prog. They solo, they joke in an incredibly self-deprecating fashion and they truly rock. The vocals are soaked in reverb and its all genuinely atmospheric. Shocked is not the word.

Canada’s Broken Social Scene are some bizarre melting point between My Bloody Valentine, Duke Ellington and The Albatross. As the set progresses, more and more people join the throng until there would appear to be more people on the stage than in the crowd. And it's packed here. Theirs is a massive sound but beautifully clear and wider than the ocean. 'Shore Leave' rears its head and kicks our asses. They close with a mighty brass roar and wipe out all the competition. For all the hype and discussion and movies, The Brianjonestown Massacre are a competent indie band in funny costumes. Nothing more and nothing more. It would seem that not a few people are interested in watching Dinosaur Jr. Murph, Lou and J, sporting the greatest mane imaginable play a crowd-pleasing set but ****ing hell, can they play. Ridiculously, they sound better than they ever have done and J’s guitar seems to get louder every second. We cant even begin to describe the carnage when a certain ‘Freak Scene’ is rolled out. A brilliant set, a genuinely influential band and, ludicrously, finer than they ever have been. Which is very fine indeed.

Saturday:
Sleater-Kinney Day at the Camber Sands fun Palace but it’s all over by the end of the first band. Cancel everybody and pack your bags because Japan’s Boredoms are about to spend the next hour tearing the planet in shreds with one of the greatest performances we have ever seen anywhere. As the lights dim, Yamatsuku Eye walks on holding some kind of light on the end of a tube and proceeds to throw it against his body which subsequently produces gargantuan waves of digital noise. Screaming and yelping this carries on for several minutes until a massive crash and the rest of the band launch into a massive tribal beat on 3 drum kits. This then fluctuates between tribal and some kind of bastardised funky as **** breakbeat with Eye playing a modulating synth drone. He conducts the band who move through this, prog techno and electronic jazz drone. This was a masterpiece of performance and a lesson on how to truly improvise whilst remaining as easy to digest as Abba. A fierce education. Dungen play lutes. You don’t need to know anything else. The 1990’s have a crap name but have a hard-edged Postcard/ Orange Juice sound and the best lyrics of the festival (something like “I’ve been smoking so much weed/ that I’m scared of the telephone/ and I don’t even got one”). Their funky, spiky and they talk (making us realise that way too many of the bands here are incredibly serious) and they potentially could be massive. Group with Franz Ferdinand maybe but they definitely have their own thing going on. Beth Dittto from The Gossip is a true star with a voice that strips paint with silk. This is hard prog-punk blues but on a truly higher level that entertains everyone. Finally, Sleater-Kinney surprise and delight by kicking out abstract rock in a not dissimilar style to very early Throwing Muses and that is not something to be said lightly. A confident set and a storming end to a nicely programmed day and this is where your humble scribe repairs to his bed to hand over the writing duties to someone much more worthy than himself. (Actually, I’m off to the disco).