So ATP/Willwal was finally wound up in January

[ricardomotorbike]

Wasn’t even Butlins, it got moved to Pontins after tickets had already been put on sale

[thesewoodenideas]

@ToMp293

Imagine them turning up to Butlin’s and meeting him

They should have been, but Barry had the falling out and it had to be relocated to Pontins and was sold out immediately as the capacity was halved!
So the The National ATP has less than 3000 punters. All the 2 person chalet owners had to go into 4 berth or more chalets in Camber so…

Colossal fuckup.

[thesewoodenideas]

Aye that should have been the one that saved them if they managed rightly. A big money spinner but he absolutely fucking fucked it didn’t he.

[ToMp293]

I can’t even remember this and I was there! I remember thinking this is ludicrously intimate for the National and thinking it was brilliant.

There must be a Christopher Guest style comedy begging to be written about a suave and stylish Brooklyn band turning up to fucking Pontin’s and having to put up with this shit.

[ricardomotorbike]

Our ‘4 person’ chalet at Pontins was an absolute pisstake, I remember on the first night having the choice of sharing a grotty sofa bed or sleeping on the kicthen floor.

[ToMp293]

Yeh I now remember the leather sofa beds which they just expected you to put a sheet over and sleep on

[thesewoodenideas]

I only went to 3 ATPs.
1st was incident free.
2nd was the Jeff Mangum which was delayed by months very late in the day and the lineup changed a fair bit.
3rd was relocated from Minehead to Camber. Yep brilliantly intimate and no one now would believe such a small festival curated by The National post High Violet.

After that and whispering of “bizarre financial irregularities” I steered clear. ATP was never at Butlin’s again after that and the lineups were not as enticing.

[thesewoodenideas]

Think ours was 2 person sofa bed and a double bedroom.

[thesewoodenideas]

Puppet Show
&
The National

[thesewoodenideas]

This lineup for what 2500 punters at a 3 day fest in Camber sands for like £170pp.
Scenes!

[Shoebox1976uk]

Did 4 ATPs and all were fairly uneventful from an organisational perspective. Although the first one was the Bowlie Weekender. It took ages to get in because they hadn’t sent tickets out in advance so we all had to queue up whilst they dished them out from the boot of an old Cortina. Pretty Teenage Fanclub were already playing by the time we got our chalet keys.

Also did Slint (boring for the most part), United States of ATP (Dino Jr/S-K/Shins weekend, was great despite sharing a chalet with a couple of randoms) and The Dirty Three (brilliant, just all my favourite acts at the time).

[ToMp293]

I convinced my then-girlfriend to come on the basis of the National and Sharon Van Etten. I took her to see Tim Hecker and she started crying - felt really bad most of the weekend and after about 8 pints on top of a crushing hangover by the time the National came on and played ‘About Today’, I realised I was stuck in Pontin’s, had to sleep on a leather sofa bed and then get home to Scotland the next day and I was an absolute mess.

[Ultimate_Damage]

I managed to get a last minute ticket, but had to share with a chalet with total strangers in a “4 bed chalet”. I ended up sleeping on the floor on a duvet cover next to the radiator.

[hankscorpio]

Some ATP memories

• The Pitchfork one being blisteringly hot all weekend, I went with some strangers from here (don’t think any of them post any more) and had a very lovely time. Definitely the most fun one - that Saturday evening Hold Steady show was great.

• Spending most of the Portishead one on my own because my ex didn’t like any of the bands and just wanted to sit in the chalet

• The Les Savy Fav curated day being ridiculous with back to back punk rock shows. Think it was Les Savy Fav, Oxes, Hot Snakes, Archers Of Loaf and then Les Savy Fav again. Excellent.

• All of the Mike Patton / Melvins one. The messiest weekend I’ve ever had. I thought the world was going to swallow me while watching Bohren and the Club of Gore at about midday.

• Having horrible flu and hallucinating while the National played

[ericVII]

i did this quite a lot, as in buying a last minute ticket, usually off of DiS actually and it somehow always turned out really well. met someone i ended up seeing for a while in one, another time i stayed with mostly aussies who cooked for me and brought really good coffee with them.

only time ATP went a bit wrong was the thurston moore one when i was broke and my mate just didn’t turn up and never gave me the money for the ticket. spent the weekend living off of a loaf of bread and drinking dirty pints. was so fucking ill afterwards.

[dots]

Tell you what is a fun game, looking back at lineups you attended and seeing a band you didn’t know then but love now and realising that was literally the only chance you’ll ever have to see them

[Steved]

Mike Patton/Melvins was so unbelievably cold too, ended up spending loads on booze in the stages because we just couldn’t face walking to Morrisons in that arctic wind.

[FontaineYouGotaSon]

[Kallgeese]

Absolutely insane that I never got to one of these. I was also a broke student in Ireland who drank eight nights a week so that explains why.

[stupidsexyflanders]