It can be difficult to write about a music festival. Offering a straightforward review doesn't really work, simply because the "I saw this band and they were good, then I saw another band and they were also good" approach quickly becomes repetitive. Which is why many writers attempt to add some colour to proceedings and tell the "story" of their festival.
Of course, that has its own unique set of pitfalls too. Some people will tell you every detail - from getting on a train to travel to the festival to walking back through their front door once it's all over - but don't have any aptitude for making the mundane fascinating. As an example:
"Woke up hungover. Ate bacon sandwich(es). Contemplated going swimming. Went swimming/did not feel up to swimming. Felt pretty certain there was no way I'd be able to drink. Cracked open a beer at around four in the afternoon and got on with it anyway. Continued drinking until it was time to sleep. Both the craic and the bands were great."
The above neatly summarises my Saturday and Sunday at Jeff Mangum's All Tomorrow's Parties, but fails to say anything interesting whatsoever. Plus I only used 61 words. Imagine reading that stretched out to essay length. Hell, you don't need to imagine it: you can find plenty of examples across the internet.
Still, better that than the over-earnest souls who make out their festival experience to be life changing. Music can, on occasion, have such a profound effect upon a person, as can music performed live. But a music festival? I'm not convinced. There are too many factors at play, far too many variables to worry about. Too much time spent hungover, too much time spent drinking through it, or, if you're not consuming industrial quantities of alcohol, too much time spent in close proximity to people who are. Too many uptight people, too many people who could do with toning it down a little, too many people who by the third day are clinging on for dear life. Festivals are communal experiences, not transcendental ones, more about the fun of spending a weekend intoxicated amongst friends and other somewhat likeminded individuals than specific artists and performances.
This holds true even when the artist is as seminal as Jeff Mangum. Few albums mean as much to me as In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and when All Tomorrow's Parties announced that he would be curating one of its two December 2011 events, tickets were immediately purchased as excitement struggled to contain itself. Unfortunately, for reasons that still have not been adequately explained, the festival was postponed until March 2012. No problem: it just meant there was more time for the anticipation to build.
He played two shows over the course of his ATP weekend. The first was early Friday evening, and it was good - and given the quality of the songs, most likely even great - but it wasn't incredible, and in the aftermath came the search for reason. Was it some failing on my part, an inability to truly appreciate a performance I'd wanted to see for so long? Was it the audience: were they somehow not up for it, into it, enjoying it enough? Maybe it was the venue? Was it the timing of the show, the fact that is was on relatively early, when everyone had spent the day travelling to get there and hadn't quite shaken the exhaustion associated with their journeys nor drunk enough to disguise it? Was it Jeff's choice of "Two Headed Boy Pt. Two" to open proceedings, a song so full of a sense of finality - both in its thematic/lyrical content and in the fact that it closes the second and final Neutral Milk Hotel album - that to start with it just didn't seem right? Or was his decision to tour solo rather than with a full band to blame?
One friend offered up the possibility that it was Jeff himself, arguing that maybe he just doesn't care about the songs enough anymore to truly do them justice on stage; that for him, the music of Neutral Milk Hotel is part of his past, no matter how much a part of the present and future it may be for his devotees. The post-mortem didn't produce any definite answers, so we chose to revel in the fact that we'd seen him play (something we never thought would happen) and convinced ourselves that the Sunday show would be better.
And it was. Much better, in fact: far closer to the experience I'd longed for than Friday's set, more inspired and emotional on Jeff's part, played to an audience who seemed more appreciative second time around. However, it didn't entirely dispel the notion that maybe he was wrong to return to performing altogether. Even now, I wonder if his story had more value as that of a man who decided to turn his back on music after recording his masterpiece, rather than that of a man who has put his reclusiveness/reluctance to perform to one side in order to play his songs to a generation of people who never had the chance to see them live. I wouldn't have missed him for the world, but in truth those people who chose not to see him didn't miss too much. It didn't change my life, but then it didn't need to. Seeing incredible songs performed well by one of my heroes was more than enough for one weekend.
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