All Tomorrow’s Parties NY Day 1 (Friday): Don’t Look Back, There are 3000 Hipsters Standing Behind You
After a great week in NYC (of which I will have more reports on when I get back), we headed to the Catskills for ATP. The event is taking place at a resort called Kutshers, but we were staying at the other official resort called The Raleigh. I overheard someone describe The Raleigh as “straight out of The Shining”, and that pretty much nailed it. This has got to be the weirdest place I have ever stayed.
We then headed up to the festival after checking in and had to wait in a very long line to exchange our tickets for wristbands. Festivals being marred in logistics issues always seems to be the case, and ATP was no exception, but nothing I haven’t come to expect. After getting my press pass secured and grabbing some grub from their “food court” consisting of two food booths, we headed right down in front of the main stage, and Atlanta’s greatest music fan, Kenny Crucial, was holding down the rail right next to us most of the night. I made it down there a few songs into the Meat Puppets doing their II album just in time to hear one of my favs, “Plateau”. The Meat Puppets were really good, and since this was pretty much their only album that I knew well, it was a greatest hits show for me. The guitarist was shredding hard and their bassist had such a goofy on stage persona.
Next up was Tortoise doing Millions Now Living Will Never Die. I made a point to not really listen to any of these albums before heading up here so they would feel fresh, and for some reason I hadn’t really listened to any Tortoise in forever despite them being one of my “entry bands” into good music so long ago. As they did their set beautifully, I realized that I still knew this album frontwards and back, and it was so enjoyable to listen to. I know I haven’t really mentioned this band much around Ohmpark since I started it, but there is no doubt in mind that these guys are some of the best of the best.
After that it was time for Thurston Moore doing his Psychic Hearts album. As much as I am obsessed with Sonic Youth, I really never got into this album the few times I had listened to it before. Now, I will take listening to Thurston any time, any day, and the set was great, with Steve Shelley on drums again, but I have to say that Psychic Hearts is not exactly in my upper stratosphere of SY related music. But regardless of my hang ups, it was certainly a crowd pleaser with the older hipster crowd that populated this thing. While there were a few “pubesters” rolling around, the audience for this festival has been pretty damn cool so far.
Finally, it was time for the event I was most excited about, Built To Spill performing Perfect From Now On. There is probably no album that has more personal meaning to me than this one, and my highest of expectations were not disappointed. I had seen them play abridged versions of songs from PFNO many times, but for this one, they played the most loyal versions of the songs I have ever heard, only adding a few extended jams here and there. After they finished out the album, they did a stunning rendition of “Goin’ Against Your Mind” to close out the set. They did an encore consisting of one my favs, “Stab” and closed with “Car” complete with a 15 minute jammout at the end. There is just no way i can describe accurately how great this set was for me.
Anyways, I have to run and catch some more music. More updates coming, and Biggie C is taking some gorgeous photos we will have for you next week.
- Posted by Davy Minor on September 20, 2008 at 2:37 pm
