The idea behind All Tomorrow’s Parties is simple: Create a mixtape of the most artistically relevant bands in rock ’n’ roll — all chosen by fellow musicians — and let them play in a very cool, comfortable setting for a somewhat reasonable price. It takes place annually in London and Long Beach, Calif., where event organizers chose the rather absurd setting of the Queen Mary — an ancient, Titanic-like cruise liner permanently anchored as a hotel and tourist attraction — to host the West Coast’s artiest rock festival.
ATP justifies its existence by promising something no other festival can: a bill of cool artists hand-picked by cool artists. The “mixtape,” as they like to call it, was curated this year by noted indie rockers Modest Mouse, who chose Lou Reed, the Flaming Lips, the Shins and many others to grace two stages — one deep in the belly of the Mary, the other pleasantly astride an estuary across from downtown Long Beach.
I got to wander around the festival Saturday, its first day, when the sun was shining and the smiling indie-rock crowd was out in full force, overwhelmingly eager to see the main event — although there was confusion as to whether it was festival curators Modest Mouse or the indisputable Big Man of the show, former Velvet Underground frontman and hipster-rock icon Lou Reed.
The indie/arty aim of ATP made itself clear upon arrival: no long lines, no parking mayhem, no big-crowd horror. The Park stage, as concert promoters called it, sat rather innocently on a nicely trimmed lawn looking out over the water, with downtown Long Beach in the background. Behind it was the Mary, casting a majestic shadow over the whole area. Somewhere in that beast was the second stage; I wouldn’t find it until later.
ATP prides itself on choosing good bands over popular ones, and this year’s lineup exemplified this heroic philosophy. The first band I got to see were Texas instrumentalists Explosions in the Sky, who more than lived up to their gleaming reputation. I got to the front of the still-small crowd right as the band climbed through a cloudy, reverb-laden dual-guitar attack to reach one of their famous, breathtaking climaxes. Guitarist Mayaf Rayani held his Stratocaster high in the air with his left arm, slamming his right hand against the guitar as the pick hit the strings, fighting the instrument to make as much noise as possible. And by this point, it was all noise. Explosions had risen out of their watery, melodic foundation and high into an ear-smashing crescendo; the other members of the band were doubled over their instruments, bass shooting rhythmic brown streams through the metallic rain of the guitars. The band members forgot themselves and became totally enveloped by the increasingly chaotic din of the music; it reached a point of destructive, beautiful conflict, and held it, through scattering delay and heart-thudding kick drum as they fell to the ground, exhausted by their epic performance. Nine minutes had gone by; half the band were lying on the stage, agonies exhausted on now de-tuned instruments, only blue sky behind the stage in beautiful surreality — and that was just their opener.
Inside a huge room on the Mary, at the bottom of a three-story stairwell, was the Ship stage, where many of the festival’s more obscure acts played. White steel walls and strange, riveted pillars were the only reminders that we were on a ship and not in some hellishly architected hotel conference room; on the entrance floor was a marketplace full of the hilariously predictable physical objects (get your old T-shirts here!) so absurdly central to the fashion-conscious rock ’n’ roll kids.
Michigan muse Sufjan Stevens took the Ship stage in full Boy Scout dress; his band followed suit, all in deliciously little-boyish blue shirts and caps with neat red bandannas tied around the neck. Stevens’ music tries, like a 1950’s tourist brochure, to sell the wonderful points of his home state in beautiful American harmony. Sweet piano chords and banjo plucking spread a blanket of warmth over the urbane crowd; Stevens’ fragile, adolescent voice recalled free, youthful Midwestern afternoons, even to those of us who had never had any.
Back in glorious, colorful nighttime at the Park stage, I waited nervously in a sea of eager fans while the evening’s last three performances stood impossibly before us. The Walkmen came onstage dressed like the college professors of indie rock: all collared shirts, navy blue sweaters, slacks and blazers. Vocalist Walter Martin, who’s blonde boyishness can’t but recall Coldplay’s Chris Martin (and whose band sounds rather like the Coldplay of indie rock), ran frantically around the stage as the music cued him to; when it stopped he did too, a wayward little boy frozen by his mother’s stern call. I was surprised as hell to hear the opening chords of “The Rat” — the Walkmen’s stunning single — come through the P.A. after only one other song. Matt Barrick’s furious drumming propelled the crowd to its most frantic state so far, helped by guitarist Paul Maroon’s incredible strumming, while Martin’s neck muscles bulged visibly, his voice striving for unattainable heights as it tried to match the fury of his band. He couldn’t make it in the end — and without his second guitar, the Walkmen’s academic composure and East Coast class couldn’t rouse the crowd to the transcendental heights so eagerly hoped for and seemingly so at hand on the group’s recording.
The rest of their set failed to match even a fraction of the excitement of “The Rat,” but it didn’t matter, because Modest Mouse was on next. I could hear murmurs all through the crowd — “I hope they play ‘Cadillacs’”; “I can’t believe we’re going to see Modest Mouse” — and after a half-hour of technical difficulties, vocalist Isaac Brock sauntered onstage to awkwardly announce the band’s performance.
“Don’t you hate it when bands just stand on stage and talk?” he taunted. The audience laughed, but no one hated it. Brock’s band jumped right into “Black Cadillacs” and the most anticipated hour of the festival had begun. The suddenly huge crowd nodded, danced, pounded their heads and laughed in response to Brock’s shenanigans and the band’s messy post-rock — raunchy and distressed as newfound classics like “Bukowski” came across, no one seemed to care. With an army of instruments including a weird stand-up bass and banjo, Modest Mouse proved that the ventures into odd cowboy music that punctuated Good News For People Who Love Bad News weren’t accidents or momentary departures, but rather an exciting new color on their musical palette. Still, Brock’s absurd shouting seemed punk-club fresh, even if his florid figure gave unmistakable hints of his band’s newfound success.
Modest Mouse’s tormented set had to end, but what happened after made us wish that the concert did, too. Brock and his band quickly left the stage after their one-hour set, providing — we thought — a good reason for the awkward departure. “We need to get off the stage so you can see Lou Reed!” he shouted. We were all terribly excited — until Reed actually started playing. After a barely-recognizable, Nico-less “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” Reed plunged into a set of his own idiotic, Dylan-esque ramblings. He’d stop his band to mumble a few random words into the microphone, give the audience a weathered, mystical look, then turn around and give a signal for the din to continue. ATP promotions promised a set heavy with Velvet-Underground tunes, but Reed didn’t deliver. He waded through a murky, boring version of “Jesus,” and at the end of a 10-minute noisefest started chanting “White Light/White Heat,” trying to squeeze in some last few points with the youngsters, perhaps. But Reed’s dead, his career and almost everything we liked about him when he fronted the VU gone; save for a few interesting interpretations of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” Reed’s performance notably lacked any great moments — a considerable tragedy, considering that even the more disappointing of the younger bands managed to have a few.
Newly crowned indie kings Modest Mouse may have played a rough set, but the night clearly belonged to them. At the climax of climaxes — their final number, the ubiquitous, triumphant single “Float On” — the shared majesty of the evening was realized. It was a sea of wayward youth mimmicking the ramblings of their once blue-collar, now rock-radio heroes; they were dressed in tattered, pricey clothes and drunk on $8 beers while the glitzy mess of Los Angeles revolved just over a small patch of shiny, black water, the gorgeous contradictions of the night brought into electric blue and purple contrast for an audience that saw them, and didn’t mind.
