All Tomorrow’s Parties, the worldwide festival alternative du jour, hasn’t appeared in Australia since its 2009 incarnation; and despite a lineup curated and starring Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, along with The Saints, Dirty Three, Grinderman andSpiritualized it was considered a bit of a commercial flop.
It’s proven to be the first and last Australian appearance of ATP – hosted at Sydney’s Cockatoo Island and Brisbane’s Riverstage and Mt. Buller in Victoria, but rumours have begun circulating that Buller may be hosting a return festival for February 2013.
The rumour mill first kicked into gear with Mess + Noise reporting that rock debonair Spencer P Jones allegedly commented at a recent gig at Melbourne’s Yah Yahs, that the “original” lineup of The Beasts of Bourbon – Jones, Tex Perkins, Kim Salmon, James Baker and Boris Sujfovic – had been asked to reform for an upcoming ATP event. Tipping acts like Low, The Drones and The Jesus Lizard for the bill also.
The article also reports that “several sources” have corroborated Jones’ comments, despite the singer himself coming out and denying that he made any such comments to begin with.
It gets curiouser, with news that a representative from Mt Buller would neither confirm nor flat out deny claims of a return appearance from ATP, but suggested to keep an eye out for “good news”.
We contacted Tex Perkins’ management about the rumours but they refused to comment, instead offering that “Tex is currently working on his Dark Horses album.”
Industry whispers also point toward a possible – and long overdue – appearance from My Bloody Valentine, who are also hotly rumoured to appear in Australia sometime around Feb 2013 given the recent confirmation of a tour of Japan early next year.
Organisers and co-founders of ATP, Barry Hogan and Deborah Higgins, recently put the company through a restructure that ensured the even would be around for “many more years to come,” writing on their official website of several “exciting developments and opportunities”, which would be unveiled over the coming months.
Mess + Noise also points towards a Triple R interview with Hogan and Higgins than a possible Austrlian leg of All Tomorrow’s Parites was “never off the table”, but would only happen if the demand was there after 2009’s poor sales. “We’re always thinking about how it’s going to return… but we really need to make sure that we would get the numbers, before we embarked on it again,” said Higgins.
At this stage, nothing is confirmed of course and it seems very unlikely given the bad blood between Beast of Bourbon; but that’s quite a few coincidences – Jones’ comments, My Bloody Valentine dates, Mt. Buller’s cryptic comments – to simply dismiss its potential…
As always, we’ll keep a close ear to the ground.
