By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A music festival is a loud thing, with people running back and
forth to see all of their favorite acts bang out half an hour or
hour long sets. Music festivals have overpriced drinks and food.
And every night of the festival there is a closing act that more
people want to see than anything else, and that act is present,
usually.
All Tomorrow’s Parties Saturday festivities, certainly had
the requisite overpriced aura, and had many noisy bands playing at
Royce, Ackerman, and even Kerckhoff, but one thing it may not have
had was an actual headliner. The Saturday shows seemed to be geared
towards exemplifying the curating band, Sonic Youth’s,
avant-garde noise-based hipness. All of the acts seemed to have an
element of jam in their repertoire, and while it was the shows most
varied night in terms of different kinds of performers, the
improvisational aspect provided a common thread. The atmosphere of
the festival was less rigid and more laid back than Friday night,
but musically the constant experimentation over traditional
song-based structures at times grew a tad bit boring and tiring.
Nonetheless, it was a show worth seeing.
The acts included everyone from the hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox, to
’70s straight ahead rockers Big Star, to noisemakers like the
Boredoms, and even maybe IDM behemoth Aphex Twin.
At the center of it all once again was Sonic Youth, with its
members taking part in various different projects throughout the
night. The guitarists Lee Ranaldo, and Thurston Moore both played
in extended jam sequences.
Moore, went on Ackerman’s stage with Mats Gustaffson,
William Winant, and Nels Cline. The four blasted through
Ackerman’s loud speakers with a combination of saxophone,
multiple percussion instruments, and guitars. The set was
adventurous and long, highlights coming at certain moments when
Gustaffson’s sax broke above the tumult, or Cline’s
guitar found its way to something bordering on recognizable guitar
notes.
Big Star’s set seemed oddly out of place as Alex Chilton
and crew kicked off the set with their song that is now best known
as the "That ’70s Show" theme, and then continued with their
straight ahead anthems.
Two of the night’s other more traditional acts were
Sleater-Kinney, and Cannibal Ox. Sleater-Kinney rocked Ackerman
ballroom with convincing riot girl earnestness, playing mostly new
songs to an energetic crowd reception. Cannibal Ox, while the only
hip-hop act on the bill, melded nicely with the other acts, and
were a crowd favorite. They didn’t abandon the spirit of
improvisation, including in their set some freestyling, and an
interlude with their DJ working impressively on the turntables. At
the same time their raps never took on the monotonous droning
quality that some of the avant-garde acts slipped into.
The night’s most intriguing set, though, was played by
Aphex Twin. Or was it? As a long line waited outside of Ackerman
Union frenetic, electronic music blasted inside the Grand Ballroom.
Onstage, alternately, a masked man, or a girl danced around with
goofy body movements, while their large shadow was projected onto a
blue backdrop. The crowd was heavily into the music dancing wildly
around, and filling Ackerman with a hazy aroma. The music was
steeped in drum and bass style, which isn’t usually
associated with Aphex Twin, and it contained more looping than his
usual studio recordings, which suggests he may have been there, but
for anyone who got there late, could barely see the stage over the
large crowd, and never saw the man himself come out, the third
night of ATP ended on a musical high, and a strange
performance.