“In 1999, cult band Belle and Sebastian staged a festival at a British seaside holiday camp in an attempt to wed the vacation experience with a series of musical performances. The event was a generational Woodstock for indie geeks, and the idea was soon transformed by promoter Barry Hogan into All Tomorrow’s Parties, a yearly artist-curated concert series by the sea featuring the titans of contemporary alternative music.

Constructed of footage shot over the course of seven years by over 200 concertgoers and musicians on Super 8, camcorders, and cell phones, this uniquely immersive film captures the sights and sounds of ATP from its inception to recent years, aiming not for a comprehensive document so much as a taste of the festival experience itself. The dizzying array of performances and celebrity sightings includes Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Iggy and the Stooges, Animal Collective, The Dirty Three, Mogwai, and more, but, it’s the odd moments that are most memorable: a Lightning Bolt performance busted by the camp administration; the boys from Grizzly Bear singing on the beach at dusk; a house band formed by drunken revelers.” (official festival synopsis)

Less than a week after taking in IT MIGHT GET LOUD at the Los Angeles Film Festival, seeing ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES made me feel as if I had, in just two films, run the gamut of what a rock and roll documentary could be. ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES tosses out exposition in favor of immersion. It’s a rock doc that focuses a hell of a lot more on the “rock” than the “doc.” Shunning copious informational history regarding the origin of ATP or serving up some staid facts on how the whole thing comes together, the film instead focuses on making the audience feel as they are actually there. And it works. Holy hell, does it work.

Some of the best parts of the film involve the fans, doing what fans at rock festivals do best – rocking out totally, being inebriated utterly. Music fans fall off of buildings, bang pots and pans, harass David Cross (“you were dissing on the J Man, baby” – a life motto if I’ve ever heard one), make out anywhere and everywhere, search for parties, fall out of grocery carts, trot along the beach. Music fans look for the next buzz in an already buzz-filled environment. And as totally insane as some of these people seem, you can’t help but want to be there with them. Everyone looks sweaty and drunk and maddeningly alive. Damn them and their dizzy dances, why can’t we be there, too, screaming for more and getting it? But ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES is put together in such an over-stimulated way that, after awhile, you might as well be there, too. You’re just a little less sweaty than everyone else.

ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES features all manner of footage of all manner of bands – some of the best are jams from Animal Collective and Akron/Family, Sonic Youth turns in a performance for the ages, and Nick Cave is wickedly funny as ever. But what’s most striking about the performances we see is that every single performance seems completely, totally, wholly flat-out. No one, it seems, comes to an ATP weekend to go at it half-assed. Not the fans, not the performers. It’s what a music festival should be, equally as fancy-free as it is sponsorship-free.

As much as I enjoyed getting rocked, the true nerd in me desired a bit more background info on the festival, particularly the “curating” process itself. Who knew Portishead were big GZA fans? Who got Mudhoney to curate with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? Who facilitated ATP expanding out of the UK?  Eh, who cares, when you can see filmed performances so rich that, for a moment, you completely forget you’re not actually there?

To browse a list of past ATP events, listed by curator and year, check out an awesome Wikipedia entry HERE.