Did anyone else wake up on Saturday afternoon at ATP festival, surprisingly without too much of a hangover from booze or pizza, saunter to a chalet where Nick prepared an excellent veggie breakfast (ALL VEGGIE BREAKFASTS SHOULD FEATURE HALLOUMI) then wander over to just outside the Butlins complex to win a game of Kubb?
No?
Didn't think so.
Okay. So, whilst my grab machine skills and my table hockey skills are pretty mega, I'm not brilliant at Kubb. But I'm dead good at motivating my team. Simon is our star player, with the most success at knocking out the other team's wooden blocks. There's a crowd of people sunning themselves on the grass, watching, so it feels like we're under pressure to make a comeback when the winning team from the previous game look set to bring it home.
But we come back from the brink. I don't take as much joy in the win as I normally would – it doesn't really count in my mind if I didn't 'score'.
As soon as it's over, Bronwyn turns to me and gleefully asks 'Can we go see The Blenders? I mean The Boulders. I mean... The Benders?'
And with that, we go to watch The Boredoms.
I say 'watch'...
Within the first few hours of arriving at ATP, I realised that I have two serious afflictions that impair my ability to actually see the bands I've come to watch.
One: I'm really short.
Two: Whenever I can see, a snogging couple magically manages to slot itself into the gap in the crowd, filling my vision with slobber.
The previous day, there was a snogging couple interrupting mine and Bronwyn's viewing of The Raincoats.
'Did you see her t-shirt? It said 'Godard is dead', that's the most ATP thing I've ever seen' I say to Bronwyn.
'No it didn't, it said 'Godard is dad' replies Bronwyn.
Huh. If anything, that's even more ATP.
So I discover during The Boredoms, which we 'watch' with Cha and Dara, that if I stand 'en point', I can see one of the twenty five drumkits and three hundred and forty two guitarists on the stage. Oh – actually, it's three afflictions, not two.
Three: I never wear my glasses.
So that number of instruments may not be necessarily factual, but that's absolutely what it sounded like. It was as though they had ALL the ponies playing the drums.
They start playing around 2.30ish on Saturday and I think they finished playing yesterday. It was the one of the longest festival sets I'd ever seen. Their name is somewhat misleading – it was utterly captivating and deafening.
When they finish, we gallop over to the merch stall where I swap my mixtape entitled 'I'm Just Here For The Table Hockey', with a nice American boy before heading back to the big chalet to drink cheap champagne and eat the cinnamon loaf I baked. We try to squeeze in a quick nap, but I'm totally wired and just lie in a darkened chalet, getting impatient for more fun.
After half an hour, Simon's the only person who rocks up at the agreed meeting time for Joanna Newsom. We watch her together where my view is of course blocked by a snogging couple, and lots of tall men. Presumably because Joanna Newsom is as famous and popular as she is with men because she's dead good at the harp, right?
Right.
Alice and I decide that she wouldn't be even half as successful if she was ugly. Even when she tells the audience that a mouse ran over her foot, I'm not endeared to her. It's not the same as with Zooey Deschanel, who I have an irrational hatred for because she can sing and acts more twee than me AND she's dead skinny and beautiful (HATE YOU ZOOEY, HATE YOU!)... I genuinely find Joanna Newsom boring.
'What did you think?' asks Nick when we find him in the crowd after.
'Dull' I respond decisively, expecting a backlash. But no, the gang are in agreement. Joanna's very pretty but she's not a party.
WE'RE HERE FOR A PARTY.
Enter...
Low.
'You're all angels' coos Alan Sparhawk in the applause of their opening number.
'Ohhhh no' I groan at Alice.
I hope he's not going to say anything else...
'Syria... I mean, I know I'm preaching to the choir here guys but... man. Syria'
'Bands shouldn't be allowed to talk between songs,' I grumble to Alice.
'I'm enjoying it. Their songs are so intense and serious, then they talk and ruin it' replies Alice.
Oh boy, I think. How can I make Alice find this as cringeworthy as I do?
'He's a sex face singer' I say, during the next song.
'That's so right and so wrong. Thanks for ruining this for me.'
Score.
Musically, they're my highlight of the weekend. I haven't seen Low for about 5 years, and their songs are as beautiful live as they've always been. But y'know... SHUT UP.
After Low, we attempt to get into the fake Nando's that's on site (it's called The Firehouse. We rechristen it 'Fando's'). But Fando's doesn't know how to accommodate more than three customers at a time without a three hour delay on food being delivered to your face.
There's only one other option.
'I never want to see another pizza again' I mutter, as I eat exactly the same pizza I ate the previous day. This lament doesn't stop me from finishing it. I know I'm going to need that cheese circulating my system if I'm going to make it to the end of Stuart Braithwaite's DJ set in the Crazy Horse, then continue onto a chalet party later.
Waddling back into Centre stage, I catch a bit Yann Tiersen which is quite fun. And then we decide we've seen more than enough music for one day. We head back to the chalet to drink some more, listen to some tunes, get into dance mode. On the way back, I try my best to win a Sonic the Hedgehog for Simon on a grab machine, but all I manage is a Knuckles. I'm not surprised he's not all that impressed. Even Tails would have been better (in other news, did anyone else know that Tails is actually a boy and not Sonic's girlfriend? Spot the kid whose parents wouldn't buy her a Sega).
It's nearly 3am before we head back to the Crazy Horse for an hour or so of dancing on the even-more-beer-soaked-spot that we've marked out for ourselves by the bar. And then it's back to the chalet for a bit more drinking and partying.
In a stroke of weird coincidence, the next door neighbours are friends from Liverpool. Who would have seen that coming? I'm mostly glued to the sofa for the rest of the night. My arms are sore from table hockey and my legs are sore from our newly invented 'lunge' dance move. Bronwyn orders me to bed around the shameful time of 8am, and we walk home in daylight, accompanied by Graeme and Adam.
We reach a junction and Bronwyn wants to go one way, I want to go the other.
'No it's this way...' she insists.
'No it's not!' I argue but I just follow her obediently. Normally I'd be more persistent when I think I'm right, but I am full of rum and it's already Sunday. I'm not full of fight.
As we round the corner of the Yacht House and see Graeme and Adam entering their chalet miles up ahead of us, my insistence that we'd gone the wrong way is vindicated.
But I'm too tired to gloat, as I usually would.
Even angels need their sleep.
