ATP The Nightmare Before Christmas 2011

Photos: Angus Harrison

Stepping into the epitome of 60s futuristic holidaying chic, now retro-family get-away, Butlins at Minehead is a bit like entering The Prisoner. The falsely endearing welcome sign, perhaps a little too big for its own good, and baffling walkways lock you into the site, while the symmetrical chalet housing and pristine grass promote the dread of having to wake up to smiling happy people whilst you’re hung-over. Of course at ATP no one's really smiling in the morning, because it's at night when the December residents comes out.

Selecting a key artist from Nightmare Before Christmas to focus on wouldn’t be fair. It’s clear that the mid-Winter festival had the most quality controlled billing of the whole year. The staggered stage times combined with the fact that each headliner was due to play twice, almost encouraged you to think it too good to be true...not to mention that each stage was easy to see and indoors. ATP has it all covered.

Gary Numan, the rock/electro daddy of the event was about as big and as sing-a-long as you'd want him to be – my flatmate even saw him on the Water Flume the next day (although it’s likely to be purely speculation). Les Savy Fav were so popular on Friday night with their jaunty art rock, that Simian Mobile Disco's DJ set was largely empty for the first half.

Archers of Loaf played one of their only reunion gigs of the year on the Friday, and while straddling what some would consider a Green Day kinda vibe, their less teen-moaning atmosphere keeps them more, for want of a better word, credible.

Saturday was the day for loops – and Walls followed by The Field was certainly a double-barrelled hitter not to be experienced for the weak-eared; interloping space age sounds squelching into each other, alongside driving techno bass-lines. This is our vote for two of the best electronic artists of 2011.

As 'their time is now', Battles weren't light on hits, or fans, or massive back lighting. Whatever you think about songs on ads (and there isn't too much to think of it, really) you can't deny Battles' gloriously barmy dance floor creations don't deserve the widespread attention they have now acquired.



Just as ATP was making you think no one could beat that, Caribou came along at 3pm on Sunday with his ‘usual set’ (which in most contexts would be enough) and then bettered in the witching hour with his 'Vibration Ensemble', a combination of his band, the Sun Ra Arkestra (who at the age of 80 are still doing back flips) and Four Tet. 'Moments' were definitely 'had' and the floor of the Centra Stage room in the Butlin's Pavillion bent as the behemoth of a crowd moved in unison to the ethereal build-up of 'Sun'.

In a year when many festivals were either just shit, confused on what they're here for anymore, financially bankrupt, or just overpriced outdoor-made-for-TV shows, ATP can genuinely stand up from the crowd and claim itself distinctive from all that. In the 50s they thought the future of Holidays had come, now Butlins seems to enshrine what is the now and the future of music festivals...the air still filled with whispers of ‘forget tents in fields’ for those disgustingly happy Butlins customers to wake up to the next morning.

Photos: Nicholas Burman