This was my first experience of ATP. As a fan of the Dirty Three, the curators of this year’s event, and a number of the other performers on the bill, I looked forward to my trip to Minehead Butlins with giddy anticipation. Such excitement may not be commonly associated with the seaside ”“ sorry, Bristol Channel-side ”“ resort, at least for those of us not lucky enough to have witnessed the removal of Redcoats at an end of season Full Monty contest. My sense of expectation had also been aroused by the perverse prospect of several intriguing and unknown acts also invited to play in what Warren Ellis described in the programme, with some understatement, as a “setting you might not normally find them.” Giddiness, albeit flecked with vomit, is certainly part of the National Express experience and perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay ATP is that it was worth the dozen or so hours I spent on coaches without functioning facilities. Transport was a bit of a problem, especially on the last leg from Taunton to the venue. Other than by car, the only way to reach Minehead is by a local bus service that departs once an hour. Late on Friday afternoon we passed about a hundred long-faced indie kids still stranded at Taunton train station. As my friend Joe observantly noted, they did not look quite so clever in their skinny jeans when queuing for an already full bus. On the bus Janice, a Yorkshirewoman unhappily displaced by the whims of her husband’s retirement, informed me that Minehead was “just a street really; with a beach and a Butlins.” I didn’t think this did the town justice on a balmy spring weekend, although it is somewhat overwhelmed by the sprawling complex. With its gleaming pavilion pointed into several off-kilter steeples, Butlins towers over the beach with the futuristic menace of a new evangelical church. On the whole the festival was well organised ”“ there was no long wait for wristbands or keys”“ but the scheduling did occasionally threaten farce. The disappointing A Silver Mt Zion were particular victims of this on Saturday afternoon: streams of people headed away from their endless droning in expectation of Joanna Newsom. This caused something of a trendy beard haemorrhage as festival goers lined up for the centre stage, resulting in a delay of the rest of the evening’s programme. Her performance was staggering, even for those more sceptical of her idiosyncratic voice. In her two forty-five minute sets the intricate combination of her playing and the erratic phrasing of her lyrics seemed barely possible. With its sheer manic descent, Sawdust and Diamonds, repeated in the second set, defied the many attempts to describe her music as child-like or ethereal. Some bands fared better than others with the acoustic conditions of the pavilion stage, the largest of the three. Alan Sparhawk of Low captured some of the disorienting weirdness of the venue by claiming that “the last time I was onstage and could see a Pizza Hut, I think I was in Florida.” (Note that he was not disparaging about Finnigan’s Fish and Chips, also opposite, which were surprisingly tasty). Dirty Three initiated the stage with their blistering violin-led instrumental music on Friday. However, for the first three songs at least, the intensity you could see in their performance was not quite transmitted to the middle of the audience. It hit you like a wall of sound in which the guitar and drumming submerged Warren Ellis’s playing. It was not until the middle of the set, with the slow-burning Authentic Celestial Music in particular, that the crescendo of guitar and frenetic violin began to hit you with all the loneliness of an imagined Australian wilderness. Nick Cave appeared on Saturday evening with the Bad Seeds. Replete with handlebar moustache, he performed a mixture of old and new and was one of the few acts prepared to risk requests: the creeping rage of Red Right Hand capping the set. The minimalism of Low’s sound was also undiminished; the chilling harmonies of Sparhawk and Mimi Parker complimented by stark electronic percussion on some of their new songs. Cat Power, on the other hand, was a major disappointment. Backed by her new touring band, the languid Memphis beauty of The Greatest was transformed into underwhelming funk. I declined the wet hymns of Spiritualized’s acoustic arrangements for the rare opportunity of seeing Mary Margaret O’Hara live. This was shambolic, bizarre and intriguing. Her vocals ranged from the most pure croon to warbles and clucks. Twice she interrupted her own songs seemingly at random. Under the blue lights of this smaller, upstairs stage, were many of the highlights of the festival. Earlier Felix Lajko, a Hungarian zither player and violinist, played almost uninterrupted in a set that seemed classical rather than folk in the precision of his playing. Yann Tiersen played both guitar and violin backed by a full band; his mainly instrumental compositions were frenetic and experimental but full of hooks. Mick Harvey and Art of Fighting provided more conventional but previously undiscovered pleasures. If Bill Callaghan’s phlegmatic onstage persona could ever admit to being triumphant he was here, performing from across the Smog albums. A stomping version of Cold Blooded Old Times was possibly my highlight of the weekend. With another excellent line up for the vs. the Fans festival, ATP looks in pretty robust shape seven years after its inception. It was worth the expense and the trip and that’s without even mentioning the delights of the beach and the waterslides in Butlins Splashworld!