shewho | ATP! ATP! ATP! Warning, this will get LONG. And sketchy. There may have been alcohol. Whodathunkit.

shewho

*Takes deep breath*

Here goes!

Friday

Early start. Picked up by

ultraruby and

lanarak about 9.30. I've been bumbling around getting over excited for hours.

Easy journey down,

beecds and mix tapes to listen to. Pit stop at a service station for tea and snacks, with the rest of the ATP crowd. Apparently!

There's the SEA!!! I saw it first!*

Stop off at the handy supermarket for supplies. Mostly lovely booze if I'm honest.

Butlins! I was worried about Butlins. How can it be the same as Camber? Camber is where ATP lives. BUT! Cor! Easy check in. Plenty of pubs. (Quick drink on some grass and a brief rendezvous with

tiny_tear and Michael, then

hosuteki,

miss_newham,

braisedbywolves and

tigerpig.) HUGE chalet! No beds in the living room! Excellent work, Butlins.

There is so much to do! Bowling. Mini golf. FLUMES! Seaside. Video games that actually work. Bingo. Pop quiz. Oh yeah, and some bands...

Accumulate

stephens and

wilteddaffodil. Party Chalet now complete!

First band of the weekend for us is The Only Ones. Hmmm. Oh dear. They've spent a lot of time living too hard. It's a bit like the chipmunks. On helium. Try very hard to restrain myself from chanting "Play the SONG! Play the SONG!" Fail, obv. Of course they play the song (Another Girl Another Planet innit) so I am happy.

Catch most of Magnolia Electric Co. I don't remember much about them, other than I'm not really impressed.

Catch some Dirty 3 which isn't inspiring me either.

Head back to chalet and start on the SingStar. ATP tradition! Everyone ace is welcome around. I cannot win a song to save my life. There is shopping.

Chuck people out at midnight and head back for Devastations. Now, inevitably, I can't really remember these at all. Which is a shame, because I *do* remember them being completely and utterly mesmerising. Stupid hedonism!

Josh Pearson (ex Lift to Experience) follows, and by contrast is Very Disappointing Indeed. I keep seeing him around all weekend, which is ace, but I can't therefore talk to his lanky, cadaverous, beardy face. He was hot once. Ah well.

We roam the building looking for Indie Discos! I think we mostly settle in Jaks, (though my phone tells me there was Crazy Horse. And Reds.) and there is dancing and some chatting.

Gemma and I conduct an accidental social experiment. There is a circle in the middle of the floor of the main arena PERFECT for lying in. So we do. You'd be shocked at the amount of people stopping to talk to us, play us music, ask us directions, recognise us later as 'the girls from the floor'. Or maybe you wouldn't. It was ace!

After all the dancing and the lying it's back to the chalet, and

billywhizz pops round and we drink and chat until the early hours. I think I turn in about 5.30, due to a sketchy plan to go FLUMING early the next morning. Which means I don't go to the beach. Or pass out. Hurrah!

Saturday: Part One (up to the indie disco.)

I'm up at 10, sorting out my swimming gear and having brekkie.

Fail to persuade anyone into coming to the pool until 12ish, hurrah for

stephens!

It's a completely proper fun pool. We laze on, er, the lazy river. Only manage one flume (the RUBBISH one) due to excess queueing. The wave machine is somehow broken. There're a couple of real lengths and there is a lot of lolling about. Ace. Carla and Michael are there at the same time.

Get changed just in time to catch the last 20 minutes of the first act of the day, Joel Silbersher & The Spot of Bother. Am very glad we do so as they're BRILLIANT. Dirty, gorgeous, melodic SLUDGE. Top work.

Merch! Everybody should own a Dirty 3 teatowel, right? And the tshirts this year are lovely. Actually, looking at a Random Alan Moore Flyer just now they possibly look like the front of one of his things. Hmmm.

I am dragged away from rude bingo ("A pair of skinny cvnts. Number 11!") to play mini golf, which is relaxing, and certainly not crazy. There is a hole in one, yeah! Don't win though, boo.

p_dan_tic and I decide to wander the stages until we find something we like. This is NOT Shannon Wright, but I am rather enamoured with Sally Timms, who is a Mekon or something, and definitely has a lovely voice and a winning combination of folkiness and dirty computer beats.

From there to Low. I used to be a little obsessed with them 1999ish, but have forgotten about them since. Which is silly, as they were clearly the best band at the festival. I'd never seen them live before. So wasn't *quite* prepared for the sheer beauty of the harmonies live, making my heart want to burst out of my chest, except that would have been far too sudden and graceless a movement to be appropriate. Instead I close my eyes and let them fill my head and imagine myself transforming into millions of glowing beams of light flowing towards the sky. And cry actual tears. Oh lord. Amazing.

Luckily Alan Vega (ex Suicide) is running late, so we can catch a little bit. Umm. Yes. Ranting over some noise provided by a woman with a record deck and a theramin. Unfortunately struck me as a little ridiculous, and like someone that'd play Slimelight and I'd laugh at. Sorry!

Then Spiritualized Acoustic Mainline. Um, I'm unsure why their name has expanded so. Pretty much as expected, occasional moments of beautiful genius, a lot that I could live without. We leave early and head over to The Quiet Chalet, where Ewan feeds us tasty nachos and we watch the last third of a rubbish episode of Doctor Who on telly.

Oh! Then! Back in for Nick Cave / Grinderman. Nick Cave again is someone I have NEVER seen live. And haven't really been into, but Blinking Flip! Can he ever put on a show! I have NO IDEA what the opening song was, but from the moment he came on and started bashing the hell out of the piano it was BRILLIANT. Nick Cave can certainly Bring The Noise. The first set was the Nick Cave stuff, and did not put a foot wrong. Then they went off and came back as Grinderman. I stuck around for about 4 songs, and got bored, so went chalet-ward to set up more karaoke.

Yep, there's never enough SingStar! This time, I couldn't lose a song. Phew! Drink, shopping, singing, aaaaaah. Well. Wick. Again people were turfed out about midnight for band reasons.

I'm sure Nina Nastasia & Jim White** were lovely too, but it was more important to TALK! And be taught how to say EIN-STUER-zen-dur NOI-bow-ten...

...who were on next! Einsturzende Neubauten! Dude! I wasn't as impressed as I could have been, because I really really REALLY wanted them to BRING THE NOISE but they were being a bit too quiet and melodic. Still, man, it was BLIXA and his silly hair! There were metal tubes and boxes of cutlery! And when they did BRING THE NOISE it was awesome. Iain and I may have got a little bit carried away, dancing right in the middle and shouting "HELL YEAH" at louder and louder volumes.*** Aw man, I love ATP.

After, we tried to lie on our special circle again, but got moved on by security. Boo! So onwards to find an indie disco again it was. This time, Crazy Horse won out. Some may say, playing not one, but two songs by Love**** in the space of 30 minutes is bad dj-ing. I say it WINS. Stayed at the disco with Iain, Gemma and Andrew til the end.

When the disco finished, there was only one thing for it! Back to the chalet for supplies, then drinking wine on the beach to watch the sun come up.

This did happen.

****

This is ridiculously long! I am making an editorial decision to put the rest of Saturday and Sunday in another entry. Blimey. tl;dr indeed!

* In my family, this means you've won. Won what, I don't know, but it's always satisfying...
** "Hardest working man in rock and roll" apparently! I'm pretty sure this is true, seeing as he did seem to be in 75% of the bands on in some way or another.....!
*** You all love me even though I'm REALLY annoying, don't you?
**** Alone Again Or, plus that one I can sing to you if you like but the only lyric I can remember right now is "....street, yeah..... Tell me!