ATP 2012: A Helpful How-To Guide for the First-Timer

Almost everyone who has ever attended All Tomorrow's Parties will describe it to you with one particular word: "special." Birthed in 1999 in the UK by Barry Hogan and partner/wife Deborah Kee Higgins as an artist-curated "excellent mixtape" of a festival, ATP has seen myriad iterations, from its roots in Camber Sands, Sussex with Belle and Sebastian as curators to its expansion worldwide to countries like Japan, Australia and the U.S., simultaneously developing a fanbase that has followed it around the globe over the past 13 years: sort of like a convention, only for a very specific brand of music nerd. A Burning Man for the flannel-beard-and-glasses variety, if you will.

If you've never been to an ATP, but would consider yourself a live music fan, you'll possess a vague understanding of this phenomenon, but it's hard to truly until you actually show up to one. Doing so for the first time is challenging, especially if you're not 100% plugged into the lineup's offerings (this year curated by the Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli), but stick to this helpful guide, and you'll be fine. We hope.

First, take stock, before you arrive, of the friends you know who will be attending. The number is likely greater than it was before the bummed festival promoters announced in July that it would be transplanted from its usual home in Asbury Park due to low ticket sales. Wonder, on the way to Pier 36, if you're walking in the right direction, because you're walking along industrial docks under a highway. Runners, bikers and roller bladers pass you, but you don't see the expected plaid twenty-something migration until you run into the back of the line at the gates.

Walk in, and immediately realize you are in what amounts to an airplane hangar (or a boat hangar, whatever) and everyone in it (mostly dudes) looks like he walked off of your OKCupid match homepage. Upon further research, later note that they all, in fact, look like founder Barry Hogan.

Note that the entire set-up, which includes the hangar, the parking lot outside (no, seriously), and a ship, the Queen of Hearts, docked out back, where they're playing back-to-back Criterion Collection flicks all weekend. Wonder if anyone came just for the Criterion festival. Embrace (or at least manage) the feeling that you are on a giant cruise ship that will never set sail. Appreciate the impressive array of couches.

Hear from everyone you meet about how much cooler the Asbury Park and Catskill Mountains locations were for this festival. Listen to their starry-eyed reminiscings with a pinch of salt, if only to make yourself feel better about watching Kurt Braunholer, Hannibal Buress and Janeane Garofalo do (perfect) stand-up, outside, directly underneath a highway overpass. Order one of those kimchi burrito bowl things that are delicious but you forget what was in it the second you're done with it.

Have someone prep you for what you are about to experience at Lightning Bolt, but don't listen too hard. It's better to be smacked in the face with how ridiculous it seems - at first: a glorified basement show, band duo on the floor in the middle of the audience, dudes with glasses strutting their heads forward and back like pigeons, lunging to what seems like an un-headbang-able noisepunk tattoo. Accidentally elbow a girl in the head when she pushes her way past you to the front, but don't feel too bad about it. Continue to watch, transfixed by how fast drummer Brian Chippendale's foot is pounding the kick-drum (couldn't you just get a double pedal, dude?) - until, all of a sudden (and maybe blame Chippendale's satanic luchador mask), you realize you've started lunge-strutting too. You've drunk the sonic Kool Aid and it is effing awesome. Try to remember for next year, when you can attempt to prepare the next batch of rookies.

Click Through Photos of ATP 2012
Realize sometime during Lightning Bolt that not bringing earplugs was a very, very bad idea. Decide to worry about it later.

Take a break from the music (not like you could hear anything further at the moment, anyway). Miss out on Edan the Dee Jay, who, at the last minute, replaced Lee Ranaldo's first of two sets of the weekend (with Leah Singer). Explore, instead, this boat situation. Be told that, although there is a bar on the Queen of Hearts, you cannot bring the beer in your hand aboard. Ask why. Get told some stuff about maritime law, whatever that means. Finish your drink outside, then climb in.

Realize immediately that the Criterion screenings happening on the lower deck could just as easily have been taking place in the basement of your college's student union. It'll be a mass of bodies, curled up and draped all over each other in the dark, like an indie-nerd orgy. Hang out in the back for a bit of Quadrophenia, but don't stay too long. Make a mental note to come back tomorrow for Dazed and Confused.

Wander back inside for Philip Glass and Tyondai Braxton - it's the only way to approach a Philip Glass set, after all. Apart from the hypnotic power of the performance, take note of two things: how the pair look like they're on a split screen and are barely aware of each other's presence onstage, and how bizarre it is that this festival's attendees (and the rest of their demographic) has decided, of late, that it is cool to be into minimalist composition. Enjoy yourself passively, because it's a peaceful respite from Lightning Bolt.

Hang out with the security guards at the side of the stage while you wait for Frank Ocean. Have one tell you he is 19. Feel old. Realize mid-conversation that Ocean was supposed to take the stage a half hour ago.

If you're shooting the festival, don't forsake a good spot in the crowd for a chance to get into the photo pit. If you do this, you'll be listening disappointedly from behind an amp tower to the first song, "Summer Remains," until your teenaged security buddy tells you and every photographer waiting that they're kicking everyone out of the pit - someone has forbidden photography at the last minute. Then, you'll have to loop around to the other side of the crowd to get a good view, and to make matters worse, you'll be stuck behind one of those couples that insist upon aggressively making out throughout the entire set, doing that back-and-forth sway thing that enrages and blocks the view of the crowd of die-hard Ocean fans around them.

Ocean himself will deliver a sort-of-rushed set, because he was late and the festival promoters have a hard, 1 a.m. deadline, but he'll make it worthwhile by taking requests and delivering rare gems like "Strawberry Swing" (an addition made possible, in all likelihood, by the fact that Coldplay wouldn't have minded, unlike some other people) and rendition of "Lovecrimes" that substitutes impressive "White"-esque stylings from a guitarist who is not John Mayer in place of Nicole Kidman monologue samples. Realize at 12:59 a.m., as Ocean is wrapping up "Pyramids," that there will be no encore. Grab a deceptively overpriced cab home, noting on the way that most of the photos you took were kind of awful. Collapse until the next morning, caffeinate, and repeat.

Summer Festivals of New York