I've made a break for the coast for the weekend for a stay at Butlins with a difference. It's All Tommorrows Parties curated by Pavement. A 3 day music festival in the unlikeliest of places: Butlkns, Minehead. With not a Red Coat in sight the camp has taken on a look of Shoreditch on Sea with no shortage of skinny jeans or trilby's. This is festival in a more civilised form. The only tent is the main Pavillion, there are no Portaloo's and you queue no more than 5 minutes for a beer.
Choice of drinking establishment is like the worst town centres in Britain with a mix of theme pubs and chain clubs. Having travelled from London on 2 trains, tube and bus I felt I deserved a drink. It's hardly an arduous journey but any excuse. With Lou travelling after work and Hadedar resting I ventured out with Captain English to do the shop and a crafty pint.
The Swinging Shillelagh is as name suggests an Irish pub. Correction. It's a pub themed loosely on Ireland. Guinness and shamrocks do not make anIrish pub. The pint of the aforementioned black stuff takes all of 10 seconds to pour into a plastic glass, part of which is down the side. This explains why every surface is sticky. Whole tables like human fly paper.
Day one highlights are Calexico covers cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart. When I think of Calexico I think of the Dead Mans Shoes soundtrack, dark and brooding. The mariachi tendencies came out here. An uplifting start to the weekend.
Broken Social Scene headline the first day and continuing a theme of politeness they thank the audience and Pavement multiple times. Who said rock n roll couldn't have manners. In a Spinal Tap moment the lead singer proclaims "so hey, you've got a new government, what's up with that... Let's hope there's change people". No one I guess has filled him in on the Tory past.
By 1am we've seen post punk journeymen Mission of Burma and Portland trio Quasi perform on a stage usually used for talent shows and karaoke. While the skinny jeans dance until we retire for the evening. We have two days to go after all.
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