ATP, Alexandra Palace, 25th May 2012

[asjbean]

Just got back...difficult to give an objective review as I was just so damn pleased to be watching the Melvins again. I really enjoyed it...we got Roman Dog Bird/Evil New War God/The Water Glass/Manky/Youth Of America/The War On Wisdom/The Bit plus a few more...can't vouch for the exact order either, but i nearly wept with joy at 'Manky'...never seen them play that live.
Merch-just the three shirts as per Bristol, and the insect/23 was only available in XL by the end, if that helps anyone on the next couple of dates.
Oh, and Yob, Sleep and Slayer were all great in their own ways (i found Wolves In The Throne Room a bit proggy, but i'd like to see them again...)...a terrific evening out.

[asjbean]

That sounds about right, although i thought Sonic Titan came before Dragonaut, but what do i know...everyone around me was obeying Al's instructions to ignite their hashish, and I may have inhaled....

[jules]

Would have had over an hour's wait in the queue to get in on Friday afternoon had Buddy Holiday and Mrs. Buddy Holiday not spotted us. So we joined them further up the queue and only waited 50 minutes to get in. 

The method of obtaining tickets was ancient, preposterously long-winded and was the reason there was such a long queue in the first place. 

I was not allowed to take my sandwiches in. They were confiscated at the entrance by a food-thug. ATP Food Police were there to make sure we could only eat the overpriced shit from the mobile shit-sellers inside. 

Ally Pally is huge - much too large for a concert, imo. The sound in the Grand Hall just seems to disappear. Melvins were great although we couldn't hear Jared's voice all set, and his guitar lead fucked up on a couple of occasions. It was the first time I'd seen Scottfromcrom SPRINTING like a tattooed gazelle from one side of the stage to the other to remedy the situation. 

Highlights: meeting Boardies and their loved ones. Matt Pike's stomach. Youth of America. The weather.

Lowlights: All Tomorrow's Police. 

[(((O)))]

Highlights: Matt Pike's stomach.

Impressive no?

So the ATP Food Police eat for free that weekend im guessing.

[jules]

Highlights: Matt Pike's stomach.

Impressive no?

So the ATP Food Police eat for free that weekend im guessing.

Or perhaps it's in Pike's rider that he gets all the punters' food 

[norecess]

that was not food.

damn, weird weekend. we booked a real shabby hotel apparently, run by the london maffia or something, and couldn't check-in due to all kinds of madness... we arrived too late at the festival, with luggage still, and not knowing where we were gonna sleep that night... missed the melvins (caught 2nd half of YOA though..) saw sleep but couldnt enjoy it, saw 5 minutes of slayer before we left to another hotel (run by the same business) to try to get a room there...

met up with jules saturday morning in hyde park who, after hearing our heart-piercing story, kindly offered lun + me to spend the rest of our weekend at his place. by this time we were all drunk enough to agree so we happily checked-out at the hotel, had some emotional goodbye-beers with the galvano dudes from sweden at green park, and spent the rest of the weekend in brighton.

so yeah, bummed about missing the bands and meeting up with others.. + lun showing me london but thanks to jules' good company and hospitality it turned to be a darn good weekend after all.

p.s. jules, rocking out on the couch to alice donut - helsinki right now!

[black stallion]

you missed melvins?

curiosity,you didn't enjoy Sleep because they were bad or because not in the right mood for them?

[norecess]

by that time i was so full of anger and hate for those sleazy fuck-ups ruining our weekend, it was hard to put myself to the band.

that, and, in my opinion the hall was way too big for a band that plays as loud as they do.. it all sounded like a big mass of thick loud noise to me, i could hardly hear the guitar in the intro of sonic titan which sucked because i love that song, so after the intro i actually took a big fat dump while they played the rest of the song, that pretty much sums up how much i cared for them playing that song at that point.

[black stallion]

by that time i was so full of anger and hate for those sleazy fuck-ups ruining our weekend, it was hard to put myself to the band.

that, and, in my opinion the hall was way too big for a band that plays as loud as they do.. it all sounded like a big mass of thick loud noise to me, i could hardly hear the guitar in the intro of sonic titan which sucked because i love that song, so after the intro i actually took a big fat dump while they played the rest of the song, that pretty much sums up how much i cared for them playing that song at that point.

totally understand,sorry to hear you guys had those problems with the hotel

[tinnitus photo]

holy crap, that sounds awful Maarten. what a shitty thing to haev happen.

sorry i didn't meet up w/ anyone...was pretty busy running around and then my wife was crashing during Slayer's set from too much jet lag and beer.

[Lunica]

I thought the venue and the whole organization of the event sucked! it definitely had a lot to do with the bullshit from the shithole hotel, but also, there was a huge line when we first got there, and it moved really slowly. for some reason, the people who bought their tickets from "wegottickets" and not "seetickets" could get it much faster. The venue was just way too big - it distorted the sound. The food was absolutely horrible. I had a burger, and took one bite of it, but had to throw i away, it was so disgusting. We missed melvins, and we missed slayer. but at least we had a lot of beers, i got fried by the sun, had my first swim of the year, and saw an adult man taking a dump (standing up) next to the train rails on the way back.

He looked like this.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Alex-]

Terrible thing that happened Maarten, I heard it from Jules.. Also a shame we couldn't find you at Sleep or Slayer that friday. It's good to hear your weekend wasn't totaly ruined after all though!

I really had an amazing weekend, so many awesome performances.. First, I want to thank everyone from the board who was hanging around with me, that's Jules, Buddy Holiday, and Old Ernie, who makes fenominal t-shirts all by himself (I've also met some great people from the Amprep forum). It was great meeting every one of you, and hopefully we'll all meet again sometime! I really have no idea where to start with the bands, people asked me what my highlights were or what my favourite performance I've seen was, but it's just too difficult..

Friday; Melvins did a great set, with YOA indeed, Manky, Growing Disgust, The War On Wisdom, The Bit.. Their show was also in the mainhall, the sound wasn't that well, and Jared had some problems with his bass during their short set. Sleep, well like Maarten said, it just didn't seemed the right place for them (main hall). I definetely want to see them again sometime in a small venue if that ever happens. Slayer was fun to have seen once, still it lasted a bit too long for me. YOB and ASOL, saw pieces of them but didn't really liked it.

Saturday; Alright, so this day there wasn't really anything that I didn't liked (from what i've seen). Only Chavez were a little disappointing, and I didn't really liked the drums of Floor (too distorted?), but that's it actually. Codeine was amazing, I had goosebumps all over. Such a great show, and that while this was their first performance in 17 years! Harvey Milk was also great, really glad I've finally seen them. Still, I can imagine it would be so much better to see them in a small venue (which I will do probably in about two weeks). Mudhoney, always good! Also their new songs sounded really great and different then the Lucky Ones stuff. They did three new ones, 2 very up tempo almost close to melodic hardcore songs, and one longer one where you almost already knew that it would have wind instruments on the album version. I really liked Dirty Three as well, wasn't too familiar with them, but I did really liked it. Great musicians, that's for sure.
Mogwai was alright, never have been a huge fan, but they did made me want to see the whole thing. Also very loud, and it was like a lightshow in the hall, which was beautiful.

Umberto was fun too, which is just this one guy who makes creepy dub step/electronic kinda music with gore horror movies as visuals on the background.

Sunday; Started with Forest Swords and Blanck Mass (both electronic based music), who both disppointed me. Then Demdike Stare, I did really enjoyed that (electronic, drone, dub step kinda project) with really awesome visuals. After that Thee Oh Sees played, which for me was definetely one of the most suprising things I've seen there (pure loud hilarious garage/punk rock). Archers of Loaf were after that, liked them as well, the vocals were a bit low in the mix sometimes though. The Make-Up had some funny moments, not too bad... Afghan Whigs got most attention that day, but it didn't really bothered me. They had some moments that I thought it was ok though, but I've just never been a Dulli fan.

[tinnitus photo]

btw, the food got a lot better for Sat and Sun...the food court outside had some winners...the pizza, Buddha bowl, and tacos were really good. i heard the burgers were fucking rancid as well.

[tinnitus photo]

Matt and Al watching the Slayer sound check

[black stallion]

and saw an adult man taking a dump (standing up) next to the train rails on the way back.

He looked like this.

this must have been a great experience